Summary

Non-signatory Jordan has expressed interest in the convention, but it has not taken any steps to join it. Jordan has participated in meetings of the convention, but not since 2012. It voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution on the convention in December 2020.

Jordan is not known to have used or produced cluster munitions, but it has imported them and is believed to possess a stockpile.

Policy

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Jordan has expressed interest in the convention but has not taken any steps to accede to it. Its last statement on the matter was in September 2012, when Prince Mired Ben Raad Zeid al-Hussein told States Parties that “We realize and appreciate the importance of the Convention on Cluster Munitions … Hopefully circumstances will change some time in the not too distant future and we will be able to join.”[1] Prince Mired, who has served as special envoy for the Mine Ban Treaty, also told States Parties in 2010 that Jordan supported the convention “from the sidelines” and had not decided “if and when we can join.”[2]

Jordan participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions but did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, even as an observer.[3] Jordan attended an international conference on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in June 2010.

Jordan participated as an observer in the convention’s meetings of States Parties in 2010–2012. It was invited to, but did not attend, the first part of the convention’s Second Review Conference held virtually in November 2020.

In December 2020, Jordan voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that urges states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[4] Jordan has voted in favor of the annual resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Jordan expressed concern at the use of cluster munitions in eastern Ukraine in 2014, describing the use of “such internationally prohibited weapons” as “a violation of the provisions of international law and a dangerous development that imperils the lives of citizens.”[5] It also voted in favor of a 2015 UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution expressing concern at evidence of cluster munition use in Darfur, Sudan.[6] Jordan has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2020.[7]

Jordan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Jordan is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it imported them and possesses a stockpile.

Jordan has not disclosed information on the types and quantities of its stockpiled cluster munitions.

According to United States (US) export records, Jordan imported 200 CBU-71 and 150 Rockeye cluster bombs at some point between 1970 and 1995.[8] The US also transferred 31,704 artillery projectiles (M509A1, M483) containing more than 3 million dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions to Jordan in 1995.[9] Jordan reportedly possesses Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, but it is not known if the ammunition types available to it include the M261 Multi-Purpose Submunition rocket.[10]

Jordan also received four NORINCO WM-80 multi-barrel rocket launchers from China in 2009–2010 but it is not known if this sale included 272mm cluster munition rockets that contain 380 high-explosive anti-tank submunitions.[11]

Use

Jordan is not known to have used cluster munitions.

Since March 2015, Jordan has participated in a Saudi-led joint military operation in Yemen against Houthi forces, also known as Ansar Allah, which has used cluster munitions.