Bangladesh
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary: Non-signatory Bangladesh has not elaborated its view on cluster munitions or its position on joining the convention. However, it voted in support of the first UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. Bangladesh has participated as an observer in two of the convention’s Meeting of States Parties, most recently in 2014. Bangladesh is not known to have used, produced, exported, or possessed any stockpiles of cluster munitions.
Policy
The People’s Republic of Bangladesh has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Bangladesh has never made a public statement elaborating its views on cluster munitions or position on joining the convention.[1]
On 7 December 2015, Bangladesh voted in favor of the first UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[2] Bangladesh did not explain its reasons for the vote in support of the non-binding resolution, which 140 states voted for, including many non-signatories.
Bangladesh participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, but did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[3] It attended a regional conference on cluster munitions in Bali, Indonesia in November 2009.
Bangladesh was invited to, but did not attend the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. It participated as an observer in the convention’s Meeting of States Parties in 2013 and 2014, but did not make any statements. Bangladesh attended intersessional meetings of the convention in Geneva in 2011 and 2014.
In August 2015, the Latifa Gono Shohay Angon organization held a press conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Dhaka and discussed the treaty and recent use of and cluster munitions with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh.[4]
Bangladesh is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Bangladesh is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions. In September 2013, a representative of Bangladesh’s Armed Forces told the Cluster Munition Coalition that Bangladesh does not possess cluster munitions.[5]
[1] In 2010, an official informed the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) that Bangladesh’s accession to the convention was a matter of priorities. Meeting with Sarwar Mahmood, Counselor, Permanent Mission of the Bangladesh to the UN, New York, 19 October 2010. Notes by the CMC.
[2] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/54, 7 December 2015.
[3] For more information on Bangladesh’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2010, see ICBL, Cluster Munition Monitor 2010 (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, October 2010), p. 196.
[4] CMC, “Campaigners celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” 12 August 2015.
[5] CMC interview with Muhammad Golam Sarowar, Armed Forces Division, Armed Forces of Bangladesh, in Lusaka, 12 September 2013. Notes by the CMC.