Ten-Year Review: State Party Belgium was among the first 30 countries to ratify the convention and trigger its entry into force on 1 August 2010. It was the first country to enact legislation to prohibit cluster munitions, in 2006. Belgium has participated in every meeting of the convention and has promoted its universalization. Belgium has condemned the use of cluster munitions in Syria and other conflicts. It has voted in favor of an annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention since 2015. Belgium has elaborated its views on several important issues for the interpretation and implementation of the convention.

Belgium is not known to have ever used or exported cluster munitions. In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2011, Belgium confirmed it produced and imported cluster munitions in the past. In 2010, Belgium completed the destruction of a stockpile of 115,210 cluster munitions and 10.1 million submunitions. It has retained 186 cluster munitions and 16,368 submunitions to be consumed for research and training purposes.

Policy

The Kingdom of Belgium signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 22 December 2009. It was among the first 30 countries to ratify and trigger the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

In June 2006, Belgium became the first country to enact legislation prohibiting the production, stockpiling, and trade of cluster munitions.[1] This and other legislation ensures its implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Belgium’s armed forces advise commanders on the application of the law of armed conflict, including the “obligations and restrictions” provided by the convention.[2]

Belgium submitted its initial Article 7 report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 27 January 2011. It has provided annual updated reports since then, most recently in April 2020.[3]

Belgium participated actively throughout the Oslo Process that produced the Convention on Cluster Munitions, hosting a regional conference on cluster munitions in October 2007.[4]

Belgium has participated in every meeting of the convention, most recently the Ninth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2019. Belgium attended the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015 and intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011–2015.

Belgium has actively promoted the convention’s universalization. and has worked to keep the convention on the agenda of the European Union (EU) Council working group on disarmament (CODUN).[5] It has reported undertaking “specific bilateral demarches, sometime in cooperation with other interested embassies” to promote the convention.[6]

In December 2019, Belgium 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.”[7] It has voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Belgium has condemned new use of cluster munitions, including in Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.[8] It first expressed concern over the use of cluster munitions in Syria in October 2012.[9] Belgium has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2019.[10] It has voted in favor of similar Human Rights Council resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in September 2018.[11]

Belgium is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Interpretive issues

Belgium has elaborated its views on a number of important issues relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention.

Belgium has expressed its understanding that Article 21 of the convention, dealing with relations with states not party, prohibits States Parties from assisting others with use of cluster munitions during joint military operations. In a 2009 memorandum, Belgium stated, “In the case where a State Party engages in cooperation or military operations with States non-parties, a series of guaranties are provided: the cooperation or the military operation must be in conformity with international law; each State Party must notify non-states parties of its obligations under the Convention; it must promote the norms established by the Convention and discourage non-states parties from using cluster munitions. Similarly, paragraph 4 affirms the primacy of the fundamental obligations of the Convention, which cannot be derogated from, even in the framework of cooperative activities or military operations with States-non-party.”

Belgium has affirmed the importance of the positive obligations of Article 21 to promote the convention, noting “the emphasis is placed on the engagement of each State Party to encourage non-states parties to ratify, accede, approve or adhere to the Convention.”[12]

In 2009, Belgium stated that “States Parties, their military personnel or their residents can participate in military cooperation and operations with States not Parties, but they have by no means the permission to develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, transfer and use cluster munitions.”[13] In 2009, the Minister of Foreign Affairs told the Belgian Senate that “military cooperation with third countries is possible, particularly international military operations, but the responsibilities are clearly delineated. In the case of Belgium and for other signatories, the rule is that we will not use cluster munitions and we will not assist States with a view to use them.”[14]

In 2011, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation said that Belgium’s national law banning cluster munitions prohibits the granting of import, export, or transit licenses for such weapons.[15] In 2013, Belgium said its regions have “an exclusive competence to grant export, import and transit licenses” but cannot grant licenses for weapons prohibited by national law or by a treaty that has entered into force in Belgium.[16]

In 2011, Belgium’s Minister of Finance and Institutional Reforms stated that “the Belgian customs are not always aware of the exact content of the transport” in response to a parliamentary question about NATO transfers of military goods.[17] The minister stated that Belgium’s commitment to international agreements prohibiting certain weapons “cannot block compliance with our country’s obligations to NATO allies,” and said, “These laws apply only to the Belgian forces, not to armed forces of other NATO member countries, whose troops and military equipment move in accordance with NATO rules.”[18]

Regarding foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on the national territory of States Parties, Belgium said in 2013 that “Following Article 1 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, State Parties undertake never under any circumstances to stockpile cluster munitions” and said that “according to Article 21 2.4b a State Party in its relations with a State not party is not allowed to itself stockpile cluster munitions.”[19]

NATO ally the United States (US) has communicated its interoperability concerns over the Convention on Cluster Munitions with Belgium.[20]

Belgium was the first country to ban investments in cluster munition producers when it enacted the Act Prohibiting the Finance of the Production, Use or Possession of Antipersonnel Mines and Submunitions in March 2007.[21]

Use, production, and transfer

Belgium is not known to have ever used or exported cluster munitions, but it produced, imported, and stockpiled them.

Belgium reported in 2011 that it “has no production facilities.”[22] Before 1990, the now defunct company Poudreries Réunies de Belgique (PRB) manufactured the NR 269 155mm artillery projectile containing dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions.[23] Mecar SA and Forges de Zeebrugge (FZ) also had cluster munitions under development.[24]

Stockpile destruction

Belgium completed the destruction of its stockpiled cluster munitions on 6 August 2010, destroying a total of 115,210 155mm M483A1 artillery projectiles and 10,138,480 M42/M46 DPICM submunitions. The stockpile was destroyed in Italy by Esplodenti Sabino under a NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA) contract.[25]

In 2005, before adopting its ban law, Belgium destroyed a stockpile of 765 BL755 cluster bombs, each containing 147 submunitions, that it imported from the United Kingdom.[26]

Retention

Belgium reported in April 2020 that it has retained 186 munitions and 16,368 submunitions for research and training purposes.[27] Belgian has consumed 114 cluster munitions and 10,032 submunitions in EOD training and research since it first announced in 2011 that it would retain 300 artillery projectiles and 26,400 submunitions. It used 17 cluster munitions and 1,496 submunitions for training EOD personal during 2019.[28] Previously, Belgium estimated that it would need to consume as many as 40 cluster munitions per year for such activities.[29]