Summary: Non-signatory Algeria has not elaborated its view on accession to the convention. It participated in a meeting of the convention for the first time in September 2015, where it expressed firm opposition to cluster munitions. However, Algeria abstained from voting on a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. Algeria is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but it is reported to stockpile them.

Policy

The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria has not yet acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Algeria attended a meeting of the convention for the first time in September 2015, when it participated as an observer in the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. During the high-level segment, Algeria told States Parties that the convention “provides a useful international norm to the global regime on disarmament.”[1]

The representative did not directly address the matter of Algeria’s accession to the convention, but described “ongoing efforts for the stabilization of our neighbouring countries.” Previously, in 2009, an Algerian official told the Monitor that the government was not prepared to sign the convention “at the present time” after conducting a study on it that considered the country’s internal situation, its long borders, and the positions of neighboring countries.[2]

Algeria acceded to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in May 2015. In the past Algeria expressed a preference for cluster munitions to be addressed via the CCW. However, it has not proposed any work on the topic at the CCW since an effort to conclude a new protocol on cluster munitions at the CCW failed in 2011, effectively ending CCW deliberations on the topic and leaving the Convention on Cluster Munitions as the sole international instrument dedicated to ending the suffering caused by cluster munitions.

On 7 December 2015, Algeria abstained from voting on UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[3] Algeria did not explain its decision to abstain from the vote on the non-binding resolution, which a total of 140 states voted for, including many non-signatories.

Algeria participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process, but did not attend the Dublin negotiations in May 2008 or the Oslo signing conference in December of that year.[4] At the Vienna conference in December 2007, Algeria described cluster munitions as “evil weapons” requiring urgent action through “a legally binding instrument.”[5]

In 2011, Wikileaks released a United States (US) Department of State cable that showed US officials met with Algeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2008 and urged Algeria not to support any measures “that would interfere with cooperation efforts aimed at non-state parties.”[6]

Before it participated in the convention’s First Review Conference, Algeria attended one international meeting on cluster munitions, in Santiago, Chile in June 2010.

Algeria is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Algeria is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.

Algeria is reported to stockpile cluster munitions. In 2004, Jane’s Information Group noted that KMG-U dispensers that deploy submunitions were in service for aircraft of the Algerian air force.[7] Also according to Jane’s, Algeria possesses Grad 122mm, Uragan 220mm, and Smerch 300mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[8]