Summary: Non-signatory South Sudan has expressed interest in acceding to the convention since it became an independent state in July 2011. Its Council of Ministers was considering the accession package as of September 2015. South Sudan has participated as an observer in several meetings of the convention, including the First Review Conference in September 2015.

South Sudan states that it has not used or produced cluster munitions and denies stockpiling them. Remnants of air-dropped cluster bombs were discovered outside the town of Bor in February 2014, after fighting between government forces and opposition fighters. South Sudan denied this use of cluster munitions, as did Uganda, which was providing air-support to the government at the time.

Policy

The Republic of South Sudan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

South Sudan has expressed its support for the convention and intent to join since it became an independent state on 9 July 2011. The convention’s universalization coordinators reported in January 2016 that only administrative procedures must be completed before South Sudan can accede.[1]

South Sudan participated as an observer in the convention’s First Review Conference held in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. In an address to the high-level segment of the meeting, the chair of South Sudan’s mine action authority, Jurkuch Barach Jurkuch, informed States Parties that the country is working “to finalize the process of joining” the convention.[2] The statement found that cluster munitions pose a threat to civilians and concluded, ”Please be assured, that South Sudan will join any time from now.”

On 7 December 2015, South Sudan was absent from the vote on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[3] It was also absent from the first round of voting on the draft resolution on 4 November 2015.[4]

South Sudan has participated as an observer the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015 and in annual Meetings of States Parties in 2011–2012 and 2014 as well as the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2013. It has also attended regional workshops on the convention, most recently in Kampala, Uganda in May 2015.[5]

South Sudan joined the Mine Ban Treaty on 11 November 2011 through a rarely used process of “succession.”[6] It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

South Sudan stated in September 2011 that it does not stockpile cluster munitions.[7] At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014, South Sudan again stated that it “does not produce nor possess any cluster munitions” and declared, “we do not intend to acquire or use cluster bombs.”[8]

The Monitor has seen no evidence to indicate past production, export, or stockpiling of cluster munitions by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) prior to the country becoming an independent state.

Use

In February 2014, evidence emerged showing that cluster munitions had been used in the period since mid-December 2013 outside of Bor, the capital of Jonglei State, during fighting between opposition forces loyal to South Sudan’s former Vice President Riek Machar and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) government forces backed up with air-support provided by Uganda, a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. In the week of 7 February 2014, UN mine action personnel found the remnants of at least eight RBK-250-275 cluster bombs and an unknown quantity of intact unexploded AO-1SCh submunitions by a major road 16 kilometers south of Bor in an area not known to be contaminated by cluster munition remnants before mid-December 2013.[9]

Both South Sudanese and Ugandan forces are believed to possess fixed wing aircraft and helicopters capable of delivering these types of cluster munitions, while South Sudan’s opposition forces are not believed to possess any means of delivery.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the UN’s discovery of the cluster bomb remnants near Bor and condemned the new use of cluster munitions without indicating who the UN believed was responsible for the use or if an investigation would be undertaken.[10] The CMC condemned the use of cluster munitions and called for an immediate investigation.[11]

South Sudan denied using cluster munitions in the conflict and also denied Ugandan use of the weapons.[12] At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014, South Sudan did not accept responsibility for the cluster munition use, which it described it as an “unfortunate incident” but pledged not to use cluster munitions. It said that a joint investigation conducted with the UN could not determine who used the cluster munitions found in Bor.[13]

At the same meeting, Uganda denied that its armed forces possess cluster bombs and stated that Uganda did not use the weapons in South Sudan.[14] In September 2015, Uganda reiterated that it does not “use, produce, stockpile or transfer cluster munitions.”[15]

The use of cluster munitions in South Sudan received strong media coverage as well as public outcry and condemnations or expressions of concern by at least 30 countries as of July 2016.[16] In May 2014, UN Security Council members unanimously adopted a resolution on South Sudan that noted “with serious concern reports of the indiscriminate use of cluster munitions” in Jonglei State and urged “all parties to refrain from similar such use in the future.”[17]

No other cluster munition use has been documented in South Sudan since it became independent in 2011. Prior to independence, numerous independent sources documented cluster munition remnants including unexploded submunitions in what is now South Sudan, indicating that the armed forces of Sudan sporadically used air-dropped cluster munitions there between 1995 and 2000.[18]