Five-Year Review: Non-signatoryMorocco adopted the convention and acknowledges the humanitarian harm caused by cluster munitions, but cannot accede at this time due the dispute over Western Sahara. Despite not joining, Morocco hasparticipated in every international meeting of the convention. Morocco says it is in de facto compliance with key provisions of the convention. It says it has never produced or exported cluster munitions. In the past Moroccan forces imported and used artillery-fired and air-dropped cluster munitions against the Polisario Front. The current status and composition of Morocco’s stockpile of cluster munitions is not known.

Policy

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

Morocco acknowledges the humanitarian rationale for the convention and claims to comply with key provisions of the convention, but states it cannot accede due the dispute over Western Sahara. In 2011, an official expressed Morocco’s support for the humanitarian principles of the convention, but informed the Monitor that accession to the convention is regarded as “a strategic objective…that will be achieved once security imperatives related to the protection of its southern provinces disappear.”[1]

Moroccan officials have repeatedly stated that the dispute over Western Sahara is the only obstacle preventing Morocco from acceding to the Mine Ban Treaty and say Morocco “applies de facto” the Mine Ban Treaty’s “obligations and fully and unconditionally aligns itself with its principles and objectives.”[2] Similarly, in September 2011, Morocco emphasized that for the Convention on Cluster Munitions “de facto universality is as fundamental as de jure universality.”[3]

Morocco participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and joined in the consensus adoption of the convention in Dublin in May 2008, but did not sign the convention.[4]

Morocco has engaged in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions despite not joining. It has participated as an observer in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014. Morocco has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, most recently in June 2015.

Morocco 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] Morocco has voted in favor of four Human Rights Council resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently on 2 July 2015.[6]

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

Use

Moroccan forces used artillery-fired and air-dropped cluster munitions against the Polisario Front in the disputed territory of Western Sahara during their conflict from 1975–1988. Between 1980 and 1981, the Royal Moroccan Air Force conducted attacks on Akka, Guelta Zemmour, Hausa, and Messeid using French-made cluster bombs.[7] In March 1982, the Royal Moroccan Air Force attacked the Bu-Crag area with cluster bombs supplied by the United States (US).[8]

The British NGO Action on Armed Violence (formerly Landmine Action) has reported significant contamination in Western Sahara from US-made CBU-71 cluster bombs with BLU-63 submunitions and from US-made M483A1 155mm artillery projectiles with M42 and M46 dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions.[9]

There are also remnants of cluster munitions in neighboring Mauritania of the same types used by Morocco in Western Sahara. It is unclear when the cluster munition attacks took place.

Morocco 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Morocco informed the Monitor in March 2011 that it has never produced or exported cluster munitions.[13]

The current status and composition of Morocco’s stockpile of cluster munitions is not known. Between 1970 and 1995, the US transferred to Morocco 2,994 CBU-52, 1,752 CBU-58, 748 CBU-71, and 850 Rockeye cluster bombs.[14] Combined, those cluster bombs contained nearly 2.5 million submunitions.

Morocco also possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rocket launchers, but it is not known if the ammunition for these weapons includes versions with submunition payloads.[15]