Chad
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary: State Party Chad ratified the convention on 26 March 2013. Chad has expressed its desire to enact national implementing legislation for the convention. It has participated in nearly all of the convention’s meetings and voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. Chad is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions, but cluster munitions were used in Chad in the past.
Policy
The Republic of Chad signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 26 March 2013, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 September 2013.
Chad has expressed its desire to enact national implementing legislation for the convention.[1] In March 2016, it reported a 2013 law under national implementation measures for the convention, but did not elaborate on the contents of the law.[2] Chad’s parliament approved ratification of the convention on 29 March 2012.[3]
Chad submitted its initial Article 7 transparency measures report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 24 May 2014 and provided an annual updated report on 5 March 2016.[4]
Chad actively participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and supported a comprehensive ban on the weapons.[5]
Chad participated in the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. It has attended all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties, except in 2013, and in intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011–2014. Chad has also participated in regional workshops, most recently in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.
On 7 December 2015, Chad voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[6]
In 2014 and 2015, Chad expressed concern at new use of cluster munitions in South Sudan and Ukraine in its capacity as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.[7] In June 2015, it voted in favor of a Security Council resolution expressing concern at evidence of cluster munition use by the government of Sudan.[8] In May 2014, Chad endorsed a Security Council resolution that expressed concern at the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan and called for “all parties to refrain from similar such use in the future.”[9]
Chad is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Chad is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[10]
French aircraft dropped cluster munitions on a Libyan airfield inside Chad at Wadi Doum during the 1986–1987 conflict. Libyan air forces also used RBL-series cluster bombs containing AO-1SCh and PTAB-2.5 submunitions.
[1] In 2013, government officials indicated that Chad was considering enacting legislation to enforce the convention’s provisions. CMC meeting with Gen. Abdel Aziz Izzo, Director, National Demining Center (Centre National de Déminage, CND), and Moussa Ali Soultani, Strategic Plan and Operations Advisor, CND, in Geneva, 16 April 2013. The ICRC is providing assistance to Chad with respect to national implementation measures. Statement of ICRC, Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 23 May 2013. Notes by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).
[2] Law 005/PR/2013 dated 18 March 2013. Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Form A, 5 March 2016. The Monitor could not find a copy of the legislation online.
[3] Statement of Chad, Convention on Cluster Munitions Intersessional Meetings, Geneva, 16 April 2013; and CMC meeting with Saleh Hissein Hassan, CND, in Geneva, 18 April 2012.
[4] The initial report covers calendar year 2013, while the report provided in March 2016 is for calendar year 2015. Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, 24 May 2014; and Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, 5 March 2016.
[5] For details on Chad’s cluster munition policy and practice up to early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 55–56.
[6] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/54, 7 December 2015.
[7] During a Security Council debate in October 2014, Chad expressed concern that “the Ukrainian army and separatist forces are using cluster bombs in their confrontations in eastern Ukraine…Chad emphatically condemns the use of those weapons of mass destruction in violation of international treaties and calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities.” Statement of Chad, UN Security Council, 7287th meeting, 25 October 2014.
[8] The resolution’s preamble, the Security Council “expressing concern at evidence, collected by AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), of two air-delivered cluster bombs near Kirigiyati, North Darfur, taking note that UNAMID disposed of them safely, and reiterating the Secretary-General’s call on the Government of Sudan to immediately investigate the use of cluster munitions.” UN Security Council Resolution 2228 (2015), Renewing Mandate of Darfur Mission until 30 June 2016, 29 June 2015.
[9] UN Security Council, “Security Council, Adopting Resolution 2155 (2014), Extends Mandate of Mission In South Sudan, Bolstering Its Strength to Quell Surging Violence, SC11414,” 27 May 2014.
[10] It put “néant” or “nothing” in the sections of its transparency report covering production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Forms B, C, and D, 24 May 2014.