Summary: State Party Afghanistan ratified the convention on 8 September 2011. Draft legislation is being prepared to enforce its implementation of the convention. Afghanistan has participated in all of the convention’s meetings and voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. It has promoted universalization of the convention and condemned new use of cluster munitions.

In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2012, Afghanistan confirmed it has not used, produced, or transferred cluster munitions. The national armed forces do not stockpile cluster munitions, but Afghanistan regularly reports the discovery and destruction of abandoned weapons including cluster munitions.

Policy

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 8 September 2011, and became a State Party on 1 March 2012.

Afghanistan reported in April 2016 that the Ministry of Justice is preparing draft implementation legislation for the convention.[1] Previously, in April 2015, it reported that the Ministry of Justice was considering how to amend existing legislation to enforce the provisions of the convention.[2] A 2012 legislative review advised that existing law should be amended, while a technical committee has provided support to the process of preparing the draft.[3]

Afghanistan submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 30 August 2012 and has provided updated annual reports since, most recently on 25 April 2016.[4]

Afghanistan participated in most meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but despite actively supporting the ban objective it did not endorse the Wellington Declaration that would have committed it to participating fully in the formal negotiations of the convention. It also did not attend the negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, not even as an observer.[5] Afghanistan attended the convention’s Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008 as an observer, but unexpectedly signed the convention near the end of the conference after the representative announced that he had received instructions and authorization to do so.[6]

Afghanistan plays a positive and active role in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It participated in the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. In an address to the high-level segment of the meeting, Afghanistan described the convention as “one of the success stories in disarmament” and affirmed the need to “send out a strong message through this conference against cluster munitions and reaffirm our collective commitments for a world free of cluster munitions in the near future.”[7]

Afghanistan has attended all of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties as well as intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011–2015.

On 7 December 2015, Afghanistan 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.”[8] Afghanistan has proposed that South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member states discuss cluster munitions.[9]

Afghanistan has condemned the use of cluster munitions and voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria.[10] At the First Review Conference, Afghanistan expressed strong support for draft outcome documents that condemned any cluster munition use by any actor and commented that “States Parties should join hands to end all suffering caused by these indiscriminate and inhumane weapons.”[11]

Afghanistan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in April 1981, but has not ratified.

Interpretive issues

Afghanistan has not elaborated its views on several important issues relating to interpretation and implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but United States (US) Department of State cables made public by Wikileaks in 2011 have outlined US interpretation of the convention as it relates to Afghanistan (see section on Foreign stockpiling). In a December 2008 State Department cable, the US outlined its concern over how Afghanistan would interpret the convention’s prohibition on transit and foreign stockpiling, as well as Article 21 on “interoperability” or joint military operations with states not party to the convention.[12]

Use, production, and transfer

In its initial Article 7 report, Afghanistan declared that it has no “production industry” for manufacturing cluster munitions.[13] In September 2011, Afghanistan stated that it “does not use, produce, or transfer Cluster Munitions in the country.”[14]

The Monitor is not aware of any use of cluster munitions in Afghanistan since 2002. US aircraft dropped 1,228 cluster bombs containing 248,056 submunitions in 232 strikes on locations throughout the country between October 2001 and early 2002.[15] Soviet forces also used air-dropped and rocket-delivered cluster munitions during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from 1979–1989, while a non-state armed group used rocket-delivered cluster munitions during the civil war in the 1990s.[16]

Stockpiling and destruction

In September 2013, Afghanistan informed States Parties that it “destroyed all its cluster munitions stocks before” the convention entered into force and therefore complies with its obligations under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[17] In October 2013, it stated that concerning cluster munitions, “Afghanistan is pleased to have destroyed all weaponry of this kind within its military stockpile.”[18]

Afghanistan “has not officially announced” the completion of its stockpiled cluster munitions, but reports that “the Ministry of Defence verbally confirms that there is not any stockpile of cluster munitions left with Afghan National Forces.”[19] This would appear to indicate that there are not any stocks under the jurisdiction and control of national forces, but additional stocks abandoned in the past by the government may continue to be discovered.

Afghanistan’s Article 7 reports have contained information under stockpile destruction indicating significant destruction during 2005–2011 and further destruction in 2012–2015.[20] In April 2016, Afghanistan reported that HALO Trust weapons and ammunition destruction teams destroyed 165 “cluster munitions” during 2015 under the supervision of the Ministry of Defence.[21] Given the government’s statements that there are no longer any stocks, these destroyed items were likely cluster munitions abandoned by other combatants in the past (and recently discovered) and/or cluster munition remnants destroyed in mine action and clearance operations. These are all considered cluster munition remnants under the Convention on Cluster Munitions and not stockpiled cluster munitions.

In 2008, Jane’s Information Group listed Afghanistan as possessing KMG-U dispensers and RBK-250-275 cluster bombs.[22] Standard international reference sources have listed Afghanistan as possessing Grad 122mm and Uragan 220mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these included versions with submunition payloads.[23]

Foreign stockpiling

According to a December 2008 State Department cable released by Wikileaks, “The United States currently has a very small stockpile of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.”[24] In February 2011, an Afghan human rights group called on the US government and NATO to reveal if it they had stockpiled or used cluster munitions in Afghanistan since the 2002 conflict.[25]