Five-Year Review: Non-signatory Egypt has expressed its support for efforts to protect civilians from cluster munitions, but sees military utility in the weapons and has objected to key provisions of the convention and the process that created it. Egypt has participated in several meetings of the convention, most recently in 2013.

Egypt is a producer, importer, exporter, and possesses stockpiles of cluster munitions. Evidence indicates that Egypt exported or otherwise transferred cluster munition rockets to Syria in the past. Egypt states that it has not used cluster munitions.

Policy

The Arab Republic of Egypt has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Egypt has expressed its support for efforts to protect civilians from cluster munitions, but sees military utility in the weapons and has objected to key provisions of the convention and the fast-track process that created it. In its last statement on the matter in September 2011, Egypt informed States Parties that it “supports all efforts aimed at protecting civilians and supporting victims of cluster munitions” but asserted that the convention’s negotiation “outside the framework of the UN will produce a deficient legal system that will be abused to use cluster munitions.” Egypt repeated its long-held concern that the convention “will not hold states which are using cluster munitions responsible for their acts” and “will not hold them to account for clearing contaminated areas.”[1]

When the Convention on Cluster Munitions entered into force on 1 August 2010, Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement expressing the government’s hope that these and other concerns will be addressed at the convention’s First Review Conference in September 2015.[2]

Egypt participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and engaged in the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 as an observer but did not attend the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.[3] Despite its engagement, in October 2008 Egypt expressed concern with both the “substantive content” of the convention and “the process which led to its conclusion outside the framework of the United Nations.”[4]

Egypt has shown interest in the convention, despite its lack of accession. It participated as an observer in the convention’s Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut, Lebanon in September 2011 and attended intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in 2011 and 2013.

Egypt 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.[5]

Egypt is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Egypt signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons in 1981, but has never ratified.

Use

Egypt has stated that it has never used cluster munitions.[6]

Egypt is participating in a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of states that began attacking Ansar Allah (the Houthi) in Yemen on 25 March 2015, in a conflict that was continuing as of 20 July 2015.[7] US-supplied cluster munitions have been used in airstrikes by coalition forces, but the state or states responsible for the use have not been identified.[8] The cluster munition attacks in Yemen have been condemned by a number of states, the president of the convention’s Fifth Meeting of States Parties, the CMC, and others.[9]

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Egypt is a producer, importer, exporter, and possesses stockpiles of cluster munitions.

Two state-owned Egyptian companies have produced ground-launched cluster munitions:

• SAKR Factory for Developed Industries has produced two types of 122mm surface-to-surface rockets: the SAKR-18 and SAKR-36, containing 72 and 98 dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions, respectively.[10] Heliopolis Company for Chemical Industries has produced 122mm and 130mm artillery projectiles, which contain 18 and 28 DPICM submunitions, respectively.[11]

Evidence indicates that Egypt exported or otherwise transferred cluster munitions to Syria in the past, most likely before the current conflict.[12] In December 2012, Human Rights Watch and others documented Syrian government use of 122mm cluster munition rockets bearing the markings of the SAKR Factory for Developed Industries.[13]

SAKR Factory for Developed Industries issued a statement in September 2013 denying that it provided SAKR rockets to the Syrian government of President Assad.[14] The government has not commented on the use of Egyptian-made cluster munition rockets in Syria.[15] Evidence indicates that SAKR cluster munition rockets continue to be used in Syria.[16]

Egypt has imported a significant number of cluster munitions, primarily from the United States (US). The US provided at least 760 CBU-87 cluster bombs (each containing 202 BLU-97 submunitions) to Egypt as part of a foreign military sales program in the early 1990s.[17] Lockheed Martin Corporation was awarded a US$36 million contract to produce 485 M26A1 Extended Range Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets for Egypt in November 1991.[18] Between 1970 and 1995, the US also supplied Egypt with 1,300 Rockeye cluster bombs.[19]

Additionally, Jane’s Information Group notes that KMG-U dispensers of Soviet-origin are in service for Egypt’s aircraft.[20]