Summary: Non-signatory Georgia has tied the matter of its accession to the convention to the need to improve the security environment in the region. Georgia has attended one meeting of the convention, in 2012. It abstained from the vote on a key United Nations (UN) resolution on the convention in December 2018.

Georgia is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions. It imported cluster munition rockets from Israel in 2007, which it used a year later during its conflict with Russia, over South Ossetia. Georgia also inherited stocks of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union. In 2013, it destroyed a stockpile of 844 RBK-series cluster bombs containing over 320,000 submunitions.

Policy

Georgia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Georgia has not taken any steps to accede to the convention. It last elaborated its views on the matter in a 2010 response to Cluster Munition Monitor that expressed support for the convention’s “spirit” but said it was “reluctant to join…until the credible changes occur in the security environment of the region.” [1]

Georgia participated in some meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions. [2] It attended an international conference on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in June 2010.

Georgia participated as an observer in the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012. This marked its first and to date only attendance at a meeting of the convention. It was invited to, but did not attend, the Eighth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2018.

In December 2018, Georgia abstained from the vote on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that calls on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.” [3] Georgia has abstained from the annual UNGA resolution promoting implementation of the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Georgia has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2018. [4] It has also voted in favor of Human Rights Council resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in July 2018. [5]

Georgia is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Georgia is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions.

Georgia inherited a stockpile of air-dropped cluster bombs from the Soviet Union. [6] It acquired Mk-4 160mm surface-to-surface rockets equipped with cluster munition payloads (each rocket contains 104 M85-type submunitions) from Israel in 2007. [7]

In 2013, Georgia destroyed 844 RBK-series cluster bombs and 320,375 submunitions as part of a project to destroy obsolete weapons supported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). [8] The last RBK-series bombs were destroyed by open detonation at the Vaziani military firing range outside Tbilisi on 12 July 2013.

Cluster munitions destroyed in Georgia [9]

Use

Georgian forces used Mk-4 cluster munition rockets, acquired from Israel, during an August 2008 conflict with Russia over the break-away region of South Ossetia. Georgia’s Ministry of Defense said that it used 24 volleys with 13 Mk-4 rockets in each. [10] It acknowledged that the Georgian armed forces used cluster munitions against the Russian forces near the Roki tunnel. [11] Human Rights Watch researchers found remnants of Georgian-fired cluster munitions in civilian areas in the north of Gori district, south of the South Ossetian administrative border. [12]