Kenya

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 03 August 2017

Summary: Signatory Kenya has expressed its intent to ratify the convention, but has taken few steps to complete the ratification process. Kenya has participated almost all of the convention’s meetings, most recently in September 2016, and voted in favor of a key UN resolution on the convention in December 2016.

Kenya is not known to have produced or imported cluster munitions. It is unclear if it possesses stockpiled cluster munitions. Kenya has denied an allegation that its air force used cluster munitions in Somalia in January 2016.

Policy

The Republic of Kenya signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.

Kenya has expressed its intent to ratify the convention several times since 2009.[1] In September 2016, a representative said the ratification process may have been delayed by a process to prepare the country’s new constitution.[2] Previously, in 2011, Kenya said it was undertaking consultations on the convention.[3] In 2009 and 2010, Kenya said the Attorney General’s office was preparing the ratification package.[4]

Kenya has indicated that specific national implementation legislation for the convention is not needed because, under its constitution, an international treaty automatically becomes part of domestic law once ratified. In 2013, Kenya said its 2010 constitution “provides that international treaties which Kenya has ratified form part of the national law.”[5]

Kenya participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and worked to achieve a strong convention text during the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[6]

Kenya has participated in almost all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties, including the Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2016. It attended the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015 and has participated in regional workshops on the convention, most recently in Kampala, Uganda, in May 2017.[7]

In December 2016, Kenya voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that calls on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[8] It also voted in favor of the first UNGA resolution on the convention in December 2015.[9]

Kenya is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Kenya is not known to have ever produced or transferred cluster munitions.

Cluster Munition Monitor has previously reported that Kenya is not known to have used or stockpiled cluster munitions.[10]

Previous use Allegations

Kenya has denied an allegation that it used air-delivered cluster munitions in Somalia in early 2016. Somali media reported that cluster munitions were used in the Gedo region of Somalia in January 2016 and published photographs reportedly taken at the site of the attack that showed dead livestock and the remnants of UK-made BL755 cluster bombs and their submunitions.[11] The article alleged that the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) carried out the attack, reportedly against al-Shabaab, after Kenyan troops were forced to retreat from their base near the Somali border town of El Adde.

A UN investigation into the incident reported to the Security Council on 9 May 2016 that:

“In addition to civilian casualties, air strikes by the Kenyan military from 15 to 23 January in the Gedo region reportedly resulted in the killing of livestock and the destruction of water wells and houses. In this regard, allegations of cluster munitions were reported by the media and local communities. However, the Government of Kenya has officially denied them. Unexploded sub-munitions are reported to have been used by Al-Shabaab as improvised explosive devices during attacks. On 31 January, the Federal Government announced a committee to investigate the impact of the air strikes, but the committee has yet to begin its work.”[12]

The Monitor also could not conclusively determine on the basis of available evidence if Kenya used cluster munitions in January 2016. The UN investigation reported that al-Shabaab have repurposed unexploded submunitions from BL755 cluster munitions as components for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), according to an arms cache seized by anti-al-Shabaab forces in Bardera in 7 March 2016.[13]

In addition, several unexploded submunitions from BL755 cluster bombs were reportedly found near Bu’ale in Middle Juba region of Somalia January 2016.[14]



[1] In 2013, Kenya said that the ratification “is under consideration.” Statement of Kenya, Convention on Cluster Munitions Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Lusaka, 11 September 2013. In 2012, Kenya informed a regional meeting that the ratification was “ongoing.” Statement of Kenya, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, 28 May 2012.

[2] ICBL-CMC meeting with Kenneth Okoki Dindi, Director of Prosecution, Kenyan Defense Forces, Geneva, 6 September 2016.

[3] Statement of Kenya, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, 14 September 2011.

[4] CMC meeting with the Kenyan delegation, Convention on Cluster Munitions First Meeting of States Parties, Vientiane, 9–12 November 2010. Notes by the CMC; and CMC meeting with Salim Mohamed Salim, Second Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Kenya to the UN in New York, New York, 14 October 2009. Notes by the CMC.

[5] Statement of Kenya, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 12 September 2012. Notes by the CMC.

[6] For details on Kenya’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 102–103.

[7] Convention on Cluster Munitions Ratification Seminar, Kampala, 29–30 May 2017. See also, Norwegian People’s Aid, “Kampala hosts East African Community Countries on cluster bomb ban,” 21 May 2015.

[8]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 71/45, 5 December 2016.

[9]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/54, 7 December 2015.

[10] Kenya is reported to possess Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 429.

[11]Losses shelling forces arrested Gedo and Juba,” Calanka Media, 24 January 2016. See also, “Sawirro: Kenya Oo Qaaday Weerar Culus Oo Aar goosi Ah!!,” Raacdo, 24 January 2016.

[12] UN Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General on Somalia (S/2016/430),” 9 May 2016, p. 10, para. 51.

[13] Ibid.

[14] See Mine Action profile on Somalia.