Georgia

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 25 August 2022

Summary

Non-signatory Georgia has expressed support for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but says that national security concerns prevent it from acceding. Georgia last attended a meeting of the convention in 2012. Georgia abstained from the vote on the key annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2021.

There is no evidence that Georgia has produced or exported cluster munitions, but it inherited stocks after the break-up of the Soviet Union and imported them from Israel in 2007. Georgia last used cluster munitions in 2008 during the conflict with Russia over South Ossetia.

Policy

Georgia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Georgia has not taken any steps to accede to the convention. It last commented on the matter in a 2010 response to the Monitor which expressed support for the convention’s “spirit” but said that Georgia is “reluctant to join…until the credible changes occur in the security environment of the region.”[1]

Georgia participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2] It attended an international conference on cluster munitions held in Santiago, Chile in June 2010.

Georgia attended the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012 as an observer, which marked its first and, to date, only attendance at a meeting of the convention. Georgia was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Second Review Conference held in November 2020 and September 2021.

In December 2021, Georgia abstained from the vote on a key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution urging states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[3] Georgia has abstained from voting on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Georgia has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at use of cluster munitions in Syria.[4] It has also voted in favor of Human Rights Council resolutions condemning use of cluster munitions in Syria.[5]

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

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Georgia is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions.

Georgia inherited a stockpile of air-dropped cluster bombs from the Soviet Union.[6] It also acquired Mk-4 160mm surface-to-surface cluster munition rockets, each containing 104 M85-type submunitions, from Israel in 2007.[7]

Georgia destroyed 844 RBK-series cluster bombs and 320,375 submunitions in 2013 as part of a project to destroy obsolete weapons, supported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).[8] The last RBK-series bombs were destroyed by open detonation at the Vaziani military firing range outside Tbilisi on 12 July 2013.

Cluster munitions destroyed in Georgia[9]

Type

Quantity of munitions

Quantity of submunitions

RBK-250-275 AO-1SCh, each containing 150 submunitions

179

26,850

RBK-250 PTAB-2.5M, each containing 30 submunitions

8

240

RBK-500 ShOAB-0.5, each containing 565 submunitions

469

264,985

RBK-500 AO-2.5RT, each containing 108 submunitions

99

10,692

RBK-500 PTAB-1, each containing 268 submunitions

61

16,348

RBK-500 PTAB-2.5, each containing 50 submunitions

21

1,050

RBK-500 PTAB-10.5A, each containing 30 submunitions

7

210

Total

844

320,375

 

Use

Georgian forces last used cluster munition rockets during the August 2008 conflict with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Georgia’s Ministry of Defense said that it used 24 volleys with 13 Mk-4 cluster munition rockets in each.[10] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged that Georgian armed forces used cluster munitions against Russian forces near the Roki tunnel.[11] Human Rights Watch (HRW) researchers found remnants of Georgian-fired cluster munitions in civilian areas in the north of Gori district, south of the South Ossetian administrative border.[12]



[1] Letter No. 8/37-02 from Amb. Giorgi Gorgiladze, Permanent Mission of Georgia to the UN in Geneva, 30 April 2010.

[2] For details on Georgia’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. 205–207.

[3]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 76/47, 6 December 2021.

[4]Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 75/193, 16 December 2020. Georgia voted in favor of similar UNGA resolutions on Syria in 2013–2020.

[5]The human rights situation in the Syrian Arab Republic,” Human Rights Council Resolution 39/15, 28 September 2018. Georgia voted in favor of similar Human Rights Council resolutions on Syria in 2016–2018.

[6] In 2004 and 2007, Jane’s Information Group reported that the Georgian Air Force possessed KMGU and RBK-500 cluster bombs. The Ministry of Defense told HRW in February 2009 that it still possessed RBK-500 cluster bombs and BKF cartridges of submunitions delivered by KMGU dispensers, but that their shelf-lives had expired and they were slated for destruction. First Deputy Minister of Defense Batu Kutelia said that Georgian Air Force planes were not fitted to deliver these air-dropped weapons. See, HRW and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 207.

[7] Submission of Georgia, UN Register of Conventional Arms, Report for Calendar Year 2007, 7 July 2008.

[8] Bombs containing incendiary submunitions and cartridges containing antivehicle mines were also destroyed. Email from the Press Office of the OSCE Secretariat, 3 May 2014.

[9] “Time schedule for cluster bomb disposal: Attachment 1.4,” undated but provided by the Press Office of the OSCE Secretariat, 7 May 2014. Other weapons destroyed included 99 RBK-500 ZAB-2.5SM and 35 RBK-250 ZAB-2.5 incendiary bombs, as well as 310 BKF cartridges containing PTM-1G scatterable antivehicle landmines.

[10] “Some Facts,” attachment to email from David Nardaia, Director, Analytical Department, Ministry of Defense, 18 November 2008. The rockets would have carried 32,448 M85 submunitions.

[11] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Response to Human Rights Watch inquiry about the use of M85 bomblets,” 2 September 2008.

[12] For more information, see HRW and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 206; and HRW, “A Dying Practice: Use of Cluster Munitions by Russia and Georgia in August 2008,” April 2009, p. 57. The Ministry of Defense of Georgia said in February 2009 that it was investigating the possibility of “failure of the weapons system.” During the conflict, Abkhazian and Russian forces moved into the upper Kodor Gorge and re-took it from Georgian forces. Abkhazia has asserted that Georgia fired large numbers of cluster munitions with M095 submunitions from LAR-160 rockets in the Kodor Valley. Email from Maxim Gunjia, Deputy Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, 24 August 2009. The deputy foreign minister provided photographs of submunitions and containers. The M095 is described as an M85-type submunition. The Monitor has not been able to independently investigate and confirm this information.