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Examples of Positive Policy and Practice

There have been a number of positive steps taken at the national level to mitigate the negative humanitarian impact of cluster munitions.  Such “best practices” should be encouraged and promoted until an international agreement addressing cluster munitions is negotiated. 

Norway has called for a legally binding instrument covering cluster munitions within the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).  It has also foresworn the use of air-dropped cluster munitions in international conflicts and prohibited their use in Afghanistan.  Australia said in April 2003 that it does not use cluster munitions and in October 2003, the Australian Senate passed a motion calling for a moratorium on use. 

In October 2004, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for an immediate moratorium on the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer or export of cluster munitions until an international agreement has been negotiated on their regulation, restriction, or prohibition.  Initiatives to ban cluster munitions have been introduced recently in the parliaments of Germany and Italy. 

Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States have announced national policies for the future procurement of cluster munitions that establish a minimum submunition reliability rate.  Germany has taken this a step further by announcing in March 2005 that it will not use cluster munitions that have a dud rate of greater than one percent and will not use those without the capacity to self-destruct or self-neutralize.  The United Kingdom recently announced that it would implement a similar policy by 2015.

Due to the increased public attention to the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions, progress has been made in recent years on eliminating specific types of cluster weapons, particularly air-dropped cluster bombs.  Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland have withdrawn from service BL-755 bombs, a type used by the United Kingdom in Iraq (in 1991 and 2003) and Yugoslavia.  The United Kingdom acknowledged in March 2005 that the BL-755 has an unacceptably high submunition failure rate and will go out-of-service by 2010. 

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have removed from service Rockeye bombs, a type used by the United States in Iraq (1991 and 2003), Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.  In 2002, more than a decade after the fighting stopped, 2,400 dud submunitions were detected and destroyed in Kuwait; one in five of these dud submunitions were from Rockeye bombs.  Canada has retired 80 percent of its stockpile of Rockeye bombs. 

France announced in March 2005 that it destroyed its entire stock of BL-66 Belouga bombs between 1996 and 2002.  The Belouga bomb was used by France in Iraq and Kuwait in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.  Poland reported that its residual stockpile of unspecified types of cluster bombs is no longer in service. 

Progress on retiring ground-launched cluster munitions has been more circumspect.  Only one country, the United Kingdom, has announced the retirement of its stockpile of aging 155mm DPICM projectiles; it will replace them with the L20A1 projectile with self-destruct submunitions.  A number of other NATO countries (Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Norway) have told Human Rights Watch that they have recently procured similar replacement cluster munition projectiles.  As an alternative to new production, the United States is choosing to retrofit 5,000 existing projectiles with self-destruct submunitions at a cost of $10.1 million.

Germany and France stated in March 2005 their intent not to use M26 MLRS rockets with DPICM submunitions until they are modernized.  The dud rate for this submunition is 16 percent according to reliability test data from the U.S. military. The Netherlands has withdrawn from service its MLRS launchers and M26 rockets citing concerns about the potential to create disproportionate collateral damage.  Denmark and Norway decided not to purchase M26 rockets for their MLRS rockets, and instead have deferred the procurement of high-explosive ammunition.  A five-nation research and develop program with participation by France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, and the United States is currently underway to develop a guided MLRS rocket whose submunitions have self-destruct fuzes.

The United Kingdom posited in March 2005 that in the long term there may be a general trend away from ground-launched cluster munitions, but emphasized that this change is not imminent.  Artillery-delivered cluster munitions constitute a large proportion of active stockpiles for many countries.