Summary

Non-signatory Jordan has expressed interest in the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but has not taken any steps to join. Jordan last participated in a meeting of the convention in 2012. It voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution on the convention in December 2021.

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. In 2012, 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, had previously told States Parties in 2010 that Jordan supported the Convention on Cluster Munitions “from the sidelines” but 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.[3] Jordan attended an international conference on cluster munitions held in Santiago, Chile in June 2010.

Jordan participated as an observer at the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2010–2012, but not since then. Jordan was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Second Review Conference held in November 2020 and September 2021.

In December 2021, Jordan voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution urging states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[4] Jordan has voted in favor of the annual UNGA 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 Security Council 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 use of cluster munitions in Syria.[7]

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

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Jordan is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but has 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 and M483 projectiles) containing more than three million dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions to Jordan in 1995.[9] Jordan reportedly possesses the Hydra-70 air-to-surface unguided rocket system, but it is not known whether the ammunition types available to it include the M261 multi-purpose submunition rocket.[10]

Jordan 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, which contain 380 high-explosive antitank submunitions.[11]

Use

Jordan is not known to have used cluster munitions.

Jordan has participated in the Saudi Arabian-led joint military operation in Yemen against Houthi forces, which used cluster munitions in 2015–2016.