Five-Year Review: State Party Afghanistan ratified the convention on 8 September 2011. Draft legislation is being prepared to enforce the provisions of the convention. Afghanistan has participated in all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties and served as the convention’s coordinator on victim assistance in 2012–2014. It has promoted universalization of the convention and condemned new use of cluster munitions.

In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2012, Afghanistan confirmed it has not used, produced, or transferred cluster munitions. The national armed forces do not stockpile cluster munitions, but continue to find abandoned weapons, including cluster munitions.

Policy

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 8 September 2011, and became a State Party on 1 March 2012.

In April 2015, Afghanistan reported that the Ministry of Justice is considering how to amend existing legislation to enforce the provisions of the convention.[1] A legislative review has advised that existing law should be amended, while a technical committee has provided input on the need for implementing legislation.[2]

Afghanistan submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 30 August 2012 and has provided updated annual reports since, most recently on 28 April 2015.[3]

Afghanistan participated in most meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but despite actively supporting the ban objective it did not endorse the Wellington Declaration that would have committed it to participating fully in the formal negotiations of the convention. It also did not attend the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, not even as an observer.[4] Afghanistan attended the convention’s Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008 as an observer, but unexpectedly signed the convention near the end of the conference after the representative announced that he had received instructions and authorization to do so.[5]

Afghanistan plays a positive and active role in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014 where it made it made several statements. Afghanistan has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings held in Geneva, except in 2012.

In September 2014, Afghanistan informed States Parties that it “considers universalization of the convention to be an international legal obligation” and committed to “seize every opportunity to promote universalization” of the convention. It has proposed that cluster munitions be discussed by South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member states.[6]

At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014, Afghanistan condemned the use of cluster munitions in other countries.[7] Afghanistan has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, including Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[8]

Afghanistan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in April 1981, but has not ratified.

Interpretive issues

Afghanistan has not elaborated its views on several important issues relating to interpretation and implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but United States (US) Department of State cables made public by Wikileaks in 2011 have outlined US interpretation of the convention as it relates to Afghanistan (see section on Foreign stockpiling). In a December 2008 State Department cable, the US outlined its concern over how Afghanistan would interpret the convention’s prohibition on transit and foreign stockpiling, as well as Article 21 on “interoperability” or joint military operations with states not party to the convention.[9]

Use, production, and transfer

In its initial Article 7 report, Afghanistan declared that it has no “production industry” for manufacturing cluster munitions.[10] In September 2011, Afghanistan stated that it “does not use, produce, or transfer Cluster Munitions in the country.”[11]

Soviet forces used air-dropped and rocket-delivered cluster munitions during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from 1979–1989, while a non-state armed group used rocket-delivered cluster munitions during the civil war in the 1990s.[12] US aircraft dropped 1,228 cluster bombs containing 248,056 bomblets in 232 strikes on locations throughout the country between October 2001 and early 2002.[13] The Monitor is not aware of additional attacks involving the use of cluster munitions since that time.

Stockpiling and destruction

In September 2013, Afghanistan informed States Parties that concerning Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, “Afghanistan has destroyed all its Cluster Munitions stocks before the CCM [Convention on Cluster Munitions] entered into force.”[14] In October 2013, it stated that concerning cluster munitions, “Afghanistan is pleased to have destroyed all weaponry of this kind within its military stockpile.”[15] In April 2014, Afghanistan again stated that it destroyed all stockpiles of cluster munitions before the convention entered into force and no longer has a stockpile.[16]

As in the previous year’s report, the April 2014 Article 7 report stated that Afghanistan “has not officially announced” the completion of its stockpiled cluster munitions, but reported that “the Ministry of Defence verbally confirms that there is not any stockpile of cluster munitions left with Afghan National Forces.”[17] This would appear to indicate that there are not any stocks under the jurisdiction and control of national forces, but additional stocks abandoned in the past by the government may continue to be discovered.

Afghanistan’s Article 7 reports have contained information under stockpile destruction indicating significant destruction during 2005–2011 and further destruction in 2012, 2013, and 2014.[18] In April 2015, Afghanistan reported that weapons and ammunition destruction teams from HALO Trust destroyed 187 “cluster munitions” during 2014 under supervision of the Ministry of Defence.[19] Given the government’s statements that there are no longer any stocks, these destroyed items were likely cluster munitions abandoned by other combatants in the past (and recently discovered) and/or cluster munition remnants destroyed in mine action and clearance operations. These are all considered cluster munition remnants under the Convention on Cluster Munitions and not stockpiled cluster munitions.

In 2008, Jane’s Information Group listed Afghanistan as possessing KMG-U dispensers and RBK-250/275 cluster bombs.[20] Standard international reference sources have listed Afghanistan as possessing Grad 122mm and Uragan 220mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these included versions with submunition payloads.[21]

Foreign stockpiling

According to a December 2008 State Department cable released by Wikileaks, “The United States currently has a very small stockpile of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.”[22] In February 2011, an Afghan human rights group called on the US government and NATO to reveal if it they had stockpiled or used cluster munitions in Afghanistan since the 2002 conflict.[23]