Cambodia
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary: Non-signatory Cambodia has expressed interest in the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but has not taken any steps to join it. Cambodia last participated in a meeting of the convention in 2015. Cambodia abstained from the vote on the key annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting the convention in December 2022.
Cambodia is not known to have produced, used, or exported cluster munitions, but it has acquired them and possesses a stockpile. Cambodia is contaminated by cluster bombs used by the United States (US) during the 1960s and 1970s. In 2011, non-signatory Thailand fired cluster munitions into Cambodian territory.
Policy
The Kingdom of Cambodia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Cambodia has said little about its position on joining the convention since 2015.[1] Cambodia held stakeholder consultations on the convention in 2013–2014, but has taken no steps to join it since then.[2] Cambodia has provided several reasons for its lack of accession to the convention.[3] The Ministry of Defense has expressed concern over its capacity to destroy stockpiled cluster munitions and replenish defense capabilities accordingly.[4] Cambodia has also emphasized the need for neighboring states to accede to the convention.[5]
Cambodia was an early, prominent, and influential supporter of the Oslo Process that produced the Convention on Cluster Munitions and advocated forcefully for the most comprehensive and immediate ban possible. It hosted the first regional forum on cluster munitions in Phnom Penh in March 2007. Cambodia joined in the consensus adoption of the convention at the end of the Dublin negotiations in May 2008.
Yet despite this extensive and positive leadership role, Cambodia attended the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008 only as an observer and its representative said that Cambodia could not sign the convention due to “recent security developments” and needed “more time” to study the implications of joining.[6]
Cambodia participated as an observer at every meeting of the convention until the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015.[7] Since then, it has not attended any official meetings of the convention. Cambodia was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Tenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in August–September 2022. Cambodia has attended regional workshops on the convention.
In December 2022, Cambodia abstained from the vote on a key UNGA resolution that urged states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[8] Until 2022, Cambodia had been absent from the vote on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.
Cambodia has condemned the use of cluster munitions, including most recently in Ukraine. In July 2023, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen recalled his country’s “painful experience” of the use of cluster bombs by the US decades earlier, and urged the “US president as the supplier and Ukrainian president as the recipient not to use cluster bombs in the war because the real victims will be Ukrainians.”[9] Cambodia previously condemned use of cluster munitions in South Sudan in 2014.[10]
The Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs (CCBL) continues to urge the government to approve the country’s accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[11]
Cambodia is a State Party to both the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).
Use, production, and transfer
Cambodia is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.
In June 2011, Thailand fired artillery-delivered cluster munitions into Cambodian territory, killing two people and leaving seven injured.[12] Afterwards, Cambodian officials told a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions that, “we have refrained from employing cluster munitions in our response” to Thailand, “despite being confronted and threatened.”[13]
The US used some 80,000 air-dropped cluster munitions, containing 26 million submunitions, on Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s during the Vietnam War, mostly in the east and northeast of the country.
Stockpiling
Cambodia acquired cluster munitions in the past and possesses a stockpile, but has not shared information on the types and quantities possessed.
Cambodia possesses BM-21 Grad and RM-70 multi-barrel 122mm rocket launchers, according to standard international reference publications.[14]
In early 2022, the Royal Cambodian Army reportedly received from China PHL-03 300mm multi-barrel rocket launchers and Type 90B 122mm launchers, but it is not known if the ammunition used for these weapons includes versions with submunition payloads.[15]
In 2008, a Ministry of National Defence official remarked that Cambodia had “missile launchers that use cluster munitions that weigh more than 20kg,” in addition to cluster munitions weighing 250kg left over from the 1980s.[16] It is unclear whether this was a reference to the total weight of the warhead or the individual submunitions contained within it.[17]
[1] In March 2017, a Cambodian official told the ICBL-CMC that the government viewed the convention positively and hoped to join in the future. ICBL-CMC meeting with Serei Kosal, First Vice President, Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA). See also, CMAA, “H.E. Senior Minister Serei Kosal, CMAA’s 1st Vice President met Ms. Megan Burke, Director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines,” 14 March 2017.
[2] In April 2014, an official said the convention’s “lack of clearly defined definition of cluster munitions” requires Cambodia to undertake “a much more vigorous study among key national technical stakeholders…to explore technical matters and to seek a possible consensus.” The official said Cambodia would consider accession to the convention when it “concludes all relevant assessments.” Statement of Cambodia, Convention on Cluster Munitions intersessional meetings, Geneva, 7 April 2014; and statement of Cambodia, Convention on Cluster Munitions Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Lusaka, 10 September 2013.
[3] See ICBL, Cluster Munition Monitor 2010 (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, October 2010), p. 201.
[4] Peter Sombor, “Cambodia Still Undecided About Signing Cluster Munitions Treaty,” The Cambodia Daily, 9 September 2013; and Monitor archives, “Cambodia: Cluster Munition Ban Policy,” last updated 21 October 2010.
[5] Monitor archives, “Cambodia: Cluster Munition Ban Policy,” last updated 21 October 2010.
[6] For details on Cambodia’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 193–195.
[7] Cambodia participated in the convention’s Meetings of States Parties until 2014 and attended the First Review Conference in 2015, as well as intersessional meetings held in Geneva in 2011–2015.
[8] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 77/79, 7 December 2022.
[9]See, “Cambodian PM Hun Sen urges Ukraine not to use US cluster bombs,” Channel News Asia, 9 July 2023.
[10] See, statement of Cambodia, Convention on Cluster Munitions intersessional meetings, Geneva, April 2014.
[11] See, CCBL Facebook page.
[12] At the convention’s first intersessional meetings in 2011, Cambodia described its accession as “just a matter of time.” Statement of Cambodia, Convention on Cluster Munitions intersessional meetings, Geneva, 27 June 2011.
[13] Statement of Cambodia, Convention on Cluster Munitions intersessional meetings, Geneva, 27 June 2011.
[14] International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 229; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal 2008, CD-edition, 3 December 2007 (Surrey: Jane’s Information Group, 2008). Cambodian officials have sought clarification as to whether multi-barrel rocket launchers capable of firing a variety of warheads are banned under the convention. Such rockets are prohibited if they deliver a payload of explosive submunitions, but not if they fire unitary munitions. Letter to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen from Steve Goose, CMC, 30 November 2011.
[15] “Cambodia receives PHL-03 & Type 90B MLRS, SH1 155mm SPH, trucks from China,” Asia Pacific Defense Journal, 1 June 2022. Both are produced by the Chinese defense contractor NORINCO and were seen at the port in Sihanoukville in Cambodia in May 2022.
[16] The official was Chau Phirun, Director-General, Department of Materials and Technical Services, Ministry of National Defence. See, Lea Radick and Neou Vannarin, “No Rush to Sign Cluster Munition Ban: Gov’t,” The Cambodia Daily, 5 December 2008.
[17] Weapons with submunitions that weigh more than 20kg each are not defined as cluster munitions by the Convention on Cluster Munitions and are thus not prohibited. According to Article 2.2: “‘Cluster munition’ means a conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions.”