Policy

The Sultanate of Oman has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Oman has never made a public statement detailing its position on cluster munitions. In September 2013, a government official informed the CMC that the country has participated as an observer in meetings of the ban convention in order to learn more and observe the convention’s development.[1]

Oman participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process, including the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 as an observer, but it did not sign the convention in December 2008.[2]

Oman has continued to show interest in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It attended the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011 and the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013 as an observer, but did not make any statements at either meeting. Oman has not participated in intersessional meetings of the convention held in Geneva since 2011.

Oman has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[3]

Oman is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Oman is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.

Oman is thought to possess a stockpile of cluster munitions. In 2002, the United States (US) announced the sale of 50 CBU-97/105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons to Oman.[4] Jane’s Information Group reports that Oman owns BL-755 and Rockeye cluster bombs as well as 122mm Grad-type and Hyrda-70 rocket launchers, but it is not known if the latter two include ammunition stockpiles that include cluster munitions.[5]