Summary: Non-signatory South Sudan announced in September 2017 that it has decided to accede to the convention. South Sudan’s officials have expressed interest in pursuing accession to the convention since it became an independent state in July 2011. South Sudan has participated as an observer in several meetings of the convention, most recently in September 2017.

South Sudan states that it has not used, produced, or stockpiled cluster munitions. It has denied using cluster bombs near Bor in 2014 during fighting between opposition fighters and government forces receiving air-support from Uganda.

Policy

The Republic of South Sudan announced in September 2017 that the government has decided to accede to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. At the Seventh Meeting of States Parties, it said that South Sudan’s proposed accession to the convention was unanimously approved by the executive Council of Ministers on 25 August 2017.[1]

As of 1 July 2018, South Sudan had not submitted its instrument of accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN).

South Sudan has expressed its support for the convention and desire to join since it became an independent state on 9 July 2011. In 2016, it appeared that only administrative procedures needed to be completed to conclude the accession process.[2]

South Sudan has participated as an observer in several meetings of the convention since 2011, most recently in September 2017.[3]

South Sudan was absent from the vote on a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution in December 2017 that urges states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[4] It abstained from voting on the previous UNGA resolution promoting the convention in 2016 and was absent from the first one in 2015.

South Sudan joined the Mine Ban Treaty on 11 November 2011 through a rarely used process of “succession.”[5] It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

The Monitor has seen no evidence to indicate past use, 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.

South Sudan stated in 2011 that it does not stockpile cluster munitions.[6] In 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.”[7]

Use

Previous use

Uganda has denied using cluster bombs in South Sudan in early 2014, when it was providing air support to the government of South Sudan’s operation against opposition forces. In February 2014, evidence emerged showing that in the period since mid-December 2013 cluster munitions were used outside of Bor, the capital of Jonglei State, during the conflict between the opposition forces loyal to South Sudan’s former Vice President Riek Machar and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) government forces, with air support for the SPLA provided by Uganda.[8] Remnants of at least eight RBK-250-275 cluster bombs and an unknown quantity of intact unexploded AO-1SCh fragmentation submunitions were found by a major road 16 kilometers south of Bor in an area that was not known to be contaminated before.[9]

South Sudan denied using cluster munitions in the conflict and denied any Ugandan use of the weapons.[10] Then, in September 2014, South Sudan described the use as an “unfortunate incident” and pledged not to use cluster munitions.[11]

The use of cluster munitions in South Sudan received strong media coverage as well as public outcry and condemnations.[12] Approximately 30 countries have expressed concern at or condemned cluster munition use in South Sudan.[13] On 27 May 2014, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2155, which noted “with serious concern reports of the indiscriminate use of cluster munitions” in Jonglei State in February 2014and urged “all parties to refrain fromsimilar such use in the future.”[14]

No other cluster munition use has been documented in South Sudan. 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.[15]