Five-Year Review: Non-signatory Armenia states that it cannot join the convention until Azerbaijan does so and a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is reached. It has participated as an observer in three Meetings of States Parties of the convention since 2011. Armenia declared in 2012 that it does not produce, export, stockpile, or use cluster munitions and does not intend to do so. 

Policy

The Republic of Armenia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Armenia has consistently stated that it cannot join unless Azerbaijan does so and a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is reached.[1]

In September 2014, Armenia informed States Parties that it hopes to join the convention and is committed to participating as an observer in its meetings, but cannot accede due to the security situation in the south Caucuses and the “war-like attitude of Azerbaijan.”[2]

Previously, at the convention’s April 2013 intersessional meetings, Armenia described the convention “as one of the principal instruments of the International Humanitarian Law to achieve the goal of elimination of an entire category of injurious conventional weapons” and said “We highly value it as an important step to respond in a credible and efficient manner to the humanitarian challenges posed by certain advancements in military technology.” The representative concluded, “Armenia fully supports the aims of the Convention and hopes that the circumstances will change sometime soon and a positive decision will be taken.”[3]

Armenia did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[4]

Armenia participated in a meeting of the convention for the first time in September 2011, when it attended the Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut as an observer. Armenia attended the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in September 2012, and the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014. It attended the convention’s intersessional meetings once, in April 2013.

At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties, Armenia expressed alarm at the use of cluster munitions in various conflicts, describing it as “a grave violation” of international humanitarian law.[5]

Armenia has not joined the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Since 2012, Armenia has stated several times that it does not produce, export, stockpile, or use cluster munitions and does not intend to do so.[6]

Armenia has stated that it has not “encountered remnants of cluster munitions on the territory of Armenia.”[7] Submunition contamination has been identified in Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory claimed by Azerbaijan but occupied and under the control of a breakaway government since the 1988–1994 conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.[8] There are also reports of contamination in other parts of occupied Azerbaijan, adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, which are under the control of Armenian forces.[9]