OVERVIEW CLEARING CLUSTER MUNITION REMNANTS 2020 A REPORT BY MINE ACTION REVIEW FOR THE SECOND REVIEW CONFERENCE OF THE 2008 CONVENTION ON CLUSTER MUNITIONS THIS REPORT IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD AT WWW.MINEACTIONREVIEW.ORG 1 October 2020 MINE ACTION REVIEW ADVISORY BOARD: mineactionreview.org i A REPORT BY MINE ACTION REVIEW FOR THE SECOND REVIEW CONFERENCE OF THE 2008 CONVENTION ON CLUSTER MUNITIONS Sudan Bosnia and Herzegovina Tajikistan Somalia South Sudan Yemen Serbia Afghanistan Iran Vietnam Chad Mauritania Cambodia Kosovo Iraq Angola Chile Georgia DR Congo Azerbaijan Germany Ukraine Syria Nagorno-Karabakh Western Sahara Libya Lao People’s Democratic Republic Lebanon Acknowledgements Disclaimer This report was researched and written by Nick The report and the views expressed in it are the work Cumming-Bruce, Alex Frost, and Lucy Pinches. The Mine of the authors. The designation of armed non-state Action Review project is managed by Lucy Pinches. The actors, states, or territories does not imply any report was edited by Stuart Casey-Maslen and laid out by judgement by The HALO Trust, MAG, NPA, the Royal Optima Design in the United Kingdom. The HALO Trust, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss Federal Mines Advisory Group (MAG), and Norwegian People’s Department of Foreign Affairs or any other organisation, Aid (NPA) form the project’s Advisory Board. Mine Action body, or individual regarding the legal status of such Review would like to thank the Royal Norwegian Ministry actors, states, or territories, or their authorities and of Foreign Affairs and the Swiss Federal Department of institutions, or the delimitation of their boundaries, or Foreign Affairs for funding its work as well as all those the status of any states or territories that border them. who contributed data and information. Other information This publication is available for download at www.mineactionreview.org Mine Action Review welcomes comments from national authorities and other relevant stakeholders. Please send any comments to [email protected] •ii Global Clearing contamination Cluster Munition from cluster Remnants munition 2020 remnants FOREWORD We welcome this year’s Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants know that this is an essential component of effective mine report and especially the fact that three more States action. It is key to ensuring that the benefits of mine action Parties have fulfilled their Treaty obligations for survey and employment and deployment accrue to all communities clearance. The record global clearance achieved in 2019 is and groups without discrimination, and that we, as a sector, similarly to be applauded. In the ten years since the entry make the greatest possible contribution to peacebuilding. into force of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) close The First Review Conference of the CCM in 2015 led to one million submunitions have been destroyed during land to clear commitments in the Dubrovnik Action Plan to release operations. We are making solid progress towards consider humanitarian and developmental needs during a world free of cluster munition remnants (CMR), even in the implementation of the Convention. There was never a most heavily contaminated States. question about what constituted completion; it was about The main reason for improved programme performance maximising the positive impact en route. Linking mine action is the evidence-based survey that is being increasingly and development planning is now, rightly, the norm and employed to good effect. High-quality survey enables the must remain central to our work in the decade leading to the effective targeting of clearance and efficient use of resources. culmination of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030. Unless we deploy our resources in areas with confirmed The same needs to be true of mine action’s links to the contamination, we are not fulfilling the objective of the CCM, environment. It would be a profound mistake to see ultimately at the expense of affected populations. Every disarmament and the environment as anything other than affected State needs a good baseline so it can plan effectively. interdependent. The mine action community must address Lao PDR, the country with more CMR on its territory than its impact on the environment, reducing travel emissions any other, is in the process of a nationwide survey that and mitigating any negative impact from operations, while will, for the first time, produce a credible baseline of the also assessing where mine action can enhance environmental massive explosive threat from CMR. Moreover, operators protection and support conservation efforts. The sector are destroying huge numbers of unexploded submunitions should also apply approaches and methods developed handing precious land back to communities for safe use. for conflict sensitivity to environmental sensitivity, taking That is not to deny the critical challenges that our sector bolder and more concrete steps to reduce the unintended still faces. The Coronavirus pandemic is impacting the mine environmental consequences of releasing previously action sector, just as it is countless other sectors worldwide. contaminated land for safe and productive use. The extent of its impact on survey and clearance operations This Convention has shown that being a State Party brings in 2020 and beyond is unclear. But we do know that the benefits as it provides support to address the impact of CMR pandemic will make the poor poorer, increasing an already – from clearance through to victim assistance. It has played growing inequality. Funding the critical work of survey and a role in drawing our organisations, and others, together clearance may become an even harder task in the years to with this aim. With more than a dozen affected States outside come. It is a fact that mine action and disarmament save lives the Convention, there are great benefits in their joining the and enable development. But we know we are going to have collective success of the CCM. Let us work together over the to work harder to make our case and convince donors to next five years and remain bold and committed to make the remain committed to empower us to free affected countries goal of total global clearance of CMR an ever nearer reality. and territories from the hazardous legacy of CMR and anti-personnel mine contamination. As this publication was going to press, information was coming to light of new use of cluster munitions in the Nagorno-Karabakh This year’s research has shown, once more, that the sector conflict. We call on all parties to all armed conflicts to refrain needs to improve its approach to, and understanding from any use of cluster munitions in order to protect civilians of, diversity. It is time to not only advance gender as International Humanitarian Law demands. mainstreaming, but also to achieve measurable progess on diversity. As operational demining organisations, we Darren Cormack PER HÅKON BREIVIK JAMES COWAN CBE DSO Chief Executive Officer Director Chief Executive Officer Mines Advisory Group Department for Mine Action and Disarmament The HALO Trust Norwegian People’s Aid mineactionreview.org CLEARING CLUSTER MUNITION REMNANTS CONTENTS KEY FINDINGS 1 SIGNATORY STATES 119 Angola 120 OVERVIEW 3 Democratic Republic of Congo 123 Summary of Progress 3 Global CMR Contamination 3 STATES NOT PARTY 127 States that have Completed CMR Clearance 4 CMR Clearance in 2019 5 Azerbaijan 128 CMR Clearance in 2010–19 6 Cambodia 131 Georgia 141 Progress in Article 4 Implementation 7 Iran 144 Programme Performance in Affected States Parties 8 Libya 146 Serbia 152 Gender and Diversity 10 South Sudan 156 Ten Years of the CCM: Key Developments and Lessons 12 Sudan 163 Syria 167 The Second CCM Review Conference 14 Tajikistan 170 Ukraine 174 STATES PARTIES 15 Vietnam 179 Yemen 187 Afghanistan 16 Bosnia and Herzegovina 22 Chad 31 OTHER AREAS 191 Chile 37 Kosovo 192 Croatia 43 Nagorno-Karabakh 199 Germany 50 Western Sahara 202 Iraq 57 Lao PDR 65 Lebanon 82 ANNEX 207 Mauritania 95 Montenegro 100 Annex 1: Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions 208 Somalia 107 United Kingdom (Falkland Islands) 114 ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS 210 Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2020 KEY FINDINGS ■ In the 10 years since the entry into force of the ■ As at 1 October 2020, 25 States and three other areas Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in 2020, a were confirmed or suspected to have CMR-contaminated total of more than 766 square kilometres of cluster areas under their jurisdiction or control,3 an overall munition-contaminated area has been cleared. During decrease of two States on the previous year. While survey, clearance, and spot task operations nearly Croatia, Montenegro, and the United Kingdom were one million unexploded submunitions have been removed from list, Mauritania was added. destroyed. Countless lives and limbs have undoubtedly Thanks to the progress under the CCM to date, been saved as a direct result, as well as the broader of the contribution to development. 110 States Parties to the CCM, only ten had cluster munition-contaminated areas to release: Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Chad, Chile, Germany, ■ , a global total of more than In 2019 alone 130 square Iraq, Lao PDR, Lebanon, Mauritania, and Somalia. kilometres was cleared of cluster munition remnants (CMR), a new record, beating the previous high (in 2018) ■ Of the ten affected States Parties, only Lao PDR is by nearly 2km2. An impressive number of unexploded massively contaminated (defined as covering more than submunitions, more than 132,000, were destroyed 1,000km2 of land), while heavy contamination exists in during clearance, survey, and spot tasks in 2019 (slightly Iraq (covering more than 100km2). In all other affected less than in 2018). The true total area of clearance is States Parties, the extent of contamination is medium probably considerably greater, given that several States or light. not party have either not reported at all on clearance progress or have done so only partially or inaccurately.