Belarus
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Ten-Year Review: Non-signatory Belarus acknowledges the convention’s humanitarian rationale but has not taken any steps to accede. It has never participated in a meeting of the convention and has abstained from voting on an annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention.
Belarus has not produced cluster munitions, nor is it known to have used or exported them. It inherited a stockpile from the Soviet Union but has not provided information on the types or quantities possessed.
Policy
The Republic of Belarus has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Belarus rarely comments on its position on joining the convention.[1] After the convention was adopted in 2008, Belarus said it “shares the humanitarian concerns” caused by cluster munitions but objected to the way that the convention was negotiated outside UN auspices.[2]
Belarus did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has never participated in a meeting of the convention.[3]
Belarus has abstained from voting on the annual UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution supporting implementation and universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, most recently in December 2019.[4] It has never explained why it abstains when other non-signatories vote for the non-legally binding resolution.
Belarus is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty and completed the destruction of its stockpiled antipersonnel landmines in 2017.
Belarus is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and in the past expressed a preference for cluster munitions to be addressed through this framework convention.
Use, production, and transfer
In 2010, Belarus said, “Our country is not a producer of cluster munitions.”[5] Belarus is not known to have used or exported cluster munitions.
Stockpiling
Belarus inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union, but it has never provided public information on the types and quantities that it possesses.[6]
According to Jane’s Information Group, the country’s air force has RBK-500 series cluster bombs.[7] Belarus also possesses Grad 122mm, Uragan 220mm, and Smerch 300mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with cluster munition payload.[8]
[1] In November 2010, a government representative told the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) the convention is “too strict” and not applicable for Belarus as it may threaten its security. Meeting with Ivan Grinevich, Counsellor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, in Geneva, 30 November 2010. Notes by the CMC.
[2] Statement of Belarus, UN General Assembly (UNGA), First Committee Disarmament and International Security, New York, 30 October 2008. Translation provided by email from Tatiana Fedorovich, Permanent Mission of Belarus to the UN in New York, 26 November 2008.
[3] For details on Belarus’s cluster munition policy and practice up to early 2009, see Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 190–191.
[4] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 74/62, 12 December 2019. Belarus also abstained from voting on this annual UNGA resolution in 2015-2018.
[5] Statement of Belarus, Convention on Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts on Cluster Munitions, Geneva, 1 September 2010. Notes by Action on Armed Violence.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Robert Hewson, ed., Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, Issue 44 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2004), p. 836.
[8] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 89; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2007–2008, CD-edition, 15 January 2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).