Summary: Non-signatory Jordan has expressed support for the convention, but has not taken any steps towards accession. Jordan has participated in several meetings of the convention, most recently in 2012, and has condemned the use of cluster munitions, including in Syria and Ukraine. It voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. Jordan is not known to have used or produced cluster munitions, but it has imported them and is believed to have a stockpile.

Policy

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

Jordan has expressed its support for the convention and interest in joining on several occasions, but has not taken any steps towards accession. Jordan’s last statement on the matter was in September 2012, when Prince Mired Ben Raad Zeid al-Hussein informed States Parties that “We realize and appreciate the importance of the Convention on Cluster Munitions even though we are not yet a State Party. Hopefully circumstances will change some time in the not too distant future and we will be able to join.”[1] Mired, who has served as special envoy for the Mine Ban Treaty, informed States Parties in November 2010 of Jordan’s support for the convention “from the sidelines” and said, “we have yet to decide if and when we can join.”[2]

Jordan participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, even as an observer.[3]

Jordan attended an international conference on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in June 2010. It participated as an observer in the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2010–2012. Jordan was invited to, but did not attend the First Review Conference of the convention in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015.

On 7 December 2015, Jordan 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.”[4] Jordan did not explain why it voted in favor of the non-binding resolution, which 140 states voted for, including many non-signatories.

As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Jordan expressed concern at reports of cluster munition attacks in eastern Ukraine in October 2014, describing the use as “a violation of the provisions of international law and a dangerous development that imperils the lives of citizens.” It called for an independent inquiry “to investigate the use of such internationally prohibited weapons.”[5] In June 2015, Jordan voted in favor of a UN Security Council resolution that expressed concern at evidence of cluster munition use in Darfur and called on the government of Sudan to “immediately investigate.”[6] Jordan has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2015.[7]

Jordan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Jordan is not known to have used or produced cluster munitions, but it has imported the weapons. The current status and content of Jordan’s stockpile of cluster munitions is not known.

The United States (US) transferred 31,704 artillery projectiles (M509A1, M483) containing more than 3 million dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions to Jordan in 1995.[8] According to US export records, Jordan also imported 200 CBU-71 and 150 Rockeye cluster bombs at some point between 1970 and 1995.[9] Jordan is also reported to possess the Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, but it is not known if the ammunition types available to it include the M261 Multi-Purpose Submunition rocket.[10]

Jordan is participating in a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of states that began an operation in Yemen against Houthi forces (Ansar Allah) on 25 March 2015, in a conflict that was continuing as of 15 July 2016.[11] US-supplied cluster munitions have been used in attacks by coalition forces. Jordan has not commented publically on the use of cluster munitions or responded to a Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) letter calling on it to refrain from using cluster munitions in Yemen.[12]