Summary

Non-signatory Singapore has acknowledged the convention’s humanitarian rationale, but has not taken any steps to join it as it regards a ban on cluster munitions as counter-productive. Singapore has participated in meetings of the convention, most recently in September 2019. It voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2020.

Singapore says it sees military utility in cluster munitions, but it has never used them. In 2015, Singapore Technologies Engineering announced that it no longer produces cluster munitions. The company was the only manufacturer of cluster munitions in the country, but the government of Singapore must still pledge not to produce cluster munitions in the future. Singapore has not exported cluster munitions since a 2008 moratorium. It possesses cluster munitions and has not shared information on the types or quantities stockpiled.

Policy

The Republic of Singapore has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Singapore has acknowledged the convention’s humanitarian rationale, but has not taken any steps to join it due to its longstanding reservations. Singapore has repeatedly called “a blanket ban on all types” of cluster munitions as “counterproductive.”[1] It has long sought to balance “humanitarian concerns…against the legitimate right of States to use such munitions judiciously for self-defence.”[2] Singapore also objects to the way the convention was negotiated outside UN auspices.[3]

Singapore did not participate in any of the preparatory meetings of the Oslo Process to create the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but attended the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 as an observer.[4] It did not participate in the convention’s Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.

Singapore has participated as an observer in meetings of the convention, most recently in 2019, but it has never made a statement at these meetings.[5] Singapore was invited, but did not attend the first part of the convention’s Second Review Conference held virtually in November 2020. Singapore has attended regional meetings on the convention, such as a virtual meeting for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) military officials convened by the Philippines in July 2020.[6]

In December 2020, Singapore 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.”[7] Singapore has voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Singapore is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Use, production, and transfer

Singapore is not known to have used cluster munitions, but it has produced cluster munitions and may have imported them.

Singapore announced an indefinite moratorium on the export of cluster munitions in November 2008.[8] It is not known if any cluster munitions were exported before then.[9]

In 2015, Singapore Technologies Engineering announced that it no longer produces cluster munitions, stating: “As a responsible military technology manufacturer we do not design, produce and sell anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions and any related key components.”[10]

In the past, Singapore Technologies Engineering manufactured 155mm dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) artillery projectiles, each containing 64 submunitions equipped with self-destruct features.[11] It also produced a 120mm mortar projectile that contains 25 DPICM submunitions.[12]

In 2018, a Singapore government representative confirmed to the Monitor that the company no longer produces cluster munitions.[13] The government of Singapore not yet committed to never produce cluster munitions in the future.

Stockpiling

Singapore stockpiles cluster munitions, but has not shared information on the types or quantities in its possession. In addition to cluster munitions produced by Singapore Technologies Engineering, the stockpile may also contain 350 CBU-71 air-delivered cluster bombs received from the United States (US) between 1970 and 1995.[14]

In 2016, a government representative told the Monitor that Singapore did not intend to acquire more cluster munitions to replenish existing stocks as older cluster munitions expire.[15] In 2018, a representative of Singapore told the Monitor that no stocks were destroyed during the previous year.[16]