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Jordan

Last Updated: 26 August 2013

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

In September 2012, Jordan’s Prince Mired Ben Raad Zeid al-Hussein told the convention’s Third Meeting to States Parties that, “We realize and appreciate the importance of the Convention on Cluster Munitions even though we are not yet a State Party. Hopefully circumstances will change some time in the not too distant future and we will be able to join.”[1]

In November 2010, Prince Mired informed States Parties that Jordan would continue to support the convention “from the sidelines,” but said, “we have yet to decide if and when we can join.”[2] In June 2010, Jordan said it was considering the convention and that it was a matter of when, not if, Jordan would join.[3]

Jordan participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, even as an observer.[4] Since 2008, Jordan has continued to show interest in the convention. It has participated as an observer in every Meeting of States Parties, including the Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012.

Jordan has not attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, including those held in April 2013.

Jordan has not made a national statement to express concern at Syria’s cluster munition use, but it voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on 15 May 2013 that strongly condemned “the use by the Syrian authorities of…cluster munitions.”[5]

Jordan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Jordan is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Jordan is not known to have used or produced cluster munitions, but it has imported them. The current status and content of Jordan’s stockpile of cluster munitions is not known.

The United States (US) transferred 31,704 artillery projectiles (M509A1, M483) containing over 3 million dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions to Jordan in 1995 as these were being phased out of the US inventory.[6] According to US export records, Jordan also imported 200 CBU-71 and 150 Rockeye cluster bombs at some point between 1970 and 1995.[7] Jordan is also reported to possess the Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, but it is not known if the ammunition types available to it include the M261 Multi-Purpose Submunition rocket.[8]

 



[1] Statement of Jordan, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2012. Notes by the CMC.

[2] Statement by Prince Mired Ben Raad Zeid al-Hussein of Jordan, Convention on Cluster Munitions First Meeting of States Parties, Vientiane, 10 November 2010. Notes by the CMC.

[3] CMC meeting with the Jordanian delegation, International Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, in Santiago, 7–9 June 2010. Notes by the CMC.

[4] For more details on Jordan’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 215–216.

[5] “The situation in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/67/L.63, 15 May 2013, www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2013/ga11372.doc.htm.

[6] US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Department of Defense, “Excess Defense Article database,” undated, www.dsca.osd.mil/programs/eda/search.asp.

[7] US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, “Cluster Bomb Exports under FMS, FY1970–FY1995.”

[8] Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).