The world’s treaty banning cluster munitions came under scrutiny last week, against a backdrop that its member states would have hoped was consigned to history: more than 1,000 people killed or injured by the lethal weapons in 2025 – the majority civilians.
Opening its Third Review Conference today in the capital Vientiane, the Convention on Cluster Munitions brings together 112 countries that have pledged to ban the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs, and to clear contaminated land.
Campaigners have hailed it as one of the most significant disarmament and humanitarian treaties of the past two decades: no member states are known to have used or produced them since the treaty’s adoption in 2008. Nearly 1.5 million cluster munitions – and 180 million submunitions – have been destroyed, and vast tracts of land returned to use. But a new global report shows these norms being put to the test.
The Cluster Munition Monitor, released last week by a coalition of civil society organisations, found that at least 1,063 people were killed or injured by the bombs in 2025 – the third-highest annual total recorded – though the actual number is most likely higher as many casualties go unreported.
The majority were from strikes in Ukraine, where both Russia and Ukraine – neither of which is a party to the convention – have used cluster munitions during the war. Other countries outside of the treaty have also been using them – Myanmar’s military against its own population, Thailand in its border conflict with Cambodia, and in 2026 repeatedly by Iran in strikes against Israel.
Meanwhile, 17 outlier states are still producing the weapons – or reserve the right to. In September last year, Israel signed a three-year contract to produce and transfer cluster munitions to the United States. Jillian Rafferty, CCM’s ban policy lead, described it as a “concerning departure”. Though there’s no evidence of the US producing or developing cluster munitions last year “there is evidence that the US plans to do so in the future,” she told journalists at the launch of the report.
The increased civilian toll, the highest since 2022, the year Russia invaded Ukraine, sparked fierce condemnation from humanitarian organisations ahead of this week’s conference. Halo Trust described the sharp rise in deaths and injuries as “deplorable”, while Human Rights Watch said it should trigger “united action” from the countries participating in the convention.
“In the face of the continued use of cluster munitions and rising civilian casualties, member countries to the convention need to send a clear message that they will stand firm in their commitment to end all use of these indiscriminate weapons,” said Verity Coyle, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at the rights organisation.
Cluster munitions, deadly jack-in-the-box weapons, contain multiple smaller bomblets that disperse on explosion over a wide area, making civilian casualties more likely when they are used in or near populated areas. But the danger does not end when the fighting stops. Between 10 and 40 per cent of the bomblets fail to explode on impact, leaving behind unexploded remnants that can remain lethal for years or even decades. Last year, leftover bombs killed 117 people in eight countries, including Laos, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Farhad Ahmed, a legal adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross, said these dangers raise fundamental questions under international humanitarian law. Parties to an armed conflict are required to distinguish between military and civilian objectives and to take precautions to limit harm to civilians.
“The characteristics of cluster munitions can make that particularly difficult when they are used in populated areas,” he said, during a press briefing at the organisation’s Geneva headquarters last week.
“At all times, parties to the armed conflict should be able to distinguish between a military objective and a civilian objective. The way these weapons work, it becomes extremely hard, especially in very, very populated areas.”
Eric Tollefsen, head of the ICRC’s Weapon Contamination Unit, has seen the consequences of explosive remnants first-hand. A former soldier and explosive ordnance disposal officer, Tollefsen worked in the Middle East and the Balkans, where his teams cleared anti-personnel mines and unexploded submunitions left by cluster munitions.
He said that through his work in the field, he’s seen the difference that international agreements can make on affected communities. “This has been the most impactful of all legal instruments we’ve seen on the weapon side, hands down,” he said, adding that the treaties had saved many lives.
Provisions in the convention requiring states to provide comprehensive medical care for all survivors have also made a significant difference, said Maarten Abeel, the ICRC’s physical rehabilitation programme coordinator. “People think about it as a convention to ban a weapon, to talk about stockpile destruction,” he said. “But one of the important concepts of it is also victim assistance.”
Abeel’s team provides physical rehabilitation, including prosthetic and orthotic services, to people with conflict-related disabilities in around two dozen countries. The injuries caused by cluster munitions are complex, ranging from amputations to damage caused by fragments to the eyes, face and other parts of the body. But the consequences are not limited to physical injuries.
People may experience anxiety and other psychological effects, while children can face disruption to their education and social development. An injury can also mean the loss of a livelihood and increased social exclusion, particularly in communities already affected by conflict. “That’s why we do physical rehabilitation as early as possible in conflict areas … to break this cycle, to prevent that this becomes a pathway to lifelong exclusion,” Abeel said, adding: “Prevention is obviously better than rehabilitation.”
Since entering into force in 2010, members of the convention have grown from 30 to 112, while another 12 states have signed but have yet to adopt it. Vanuatu became the latest country to join the convention last year. Since 2024, it’s also supported by a General Assembly resolution adopted by 138 states, including 25 not party to the convention.
But Kasia Derlicka-Rosenbauer, deputy director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines–Cluster Munition Coalition, conceded that momentum has slowed. Lithuania became the first country to withdraw from the convention in September 2025, citing increasing military threat from Russia. The Baltic country also exited the Mine Ban Treaty the same year alongside four other European states.
“This has been extremely damaging. It’s very difficult to convince countries to join a treaty when others are leaving it,” Derlicka-Rosenbauer told Geneva Solutions. “Indeed, we have been very concerned that this withdrawal may trigger a domino effect. We haven’t seen that; we hope not to,” she added.
The silver lining was Vanuatu’s decision to join the convention, straight after Lithuania’s withdrawal, despite the Pacific island having no history of cluster munition use or contamination. “It is a very powerful signal that not everyone thinks that it is time to drop norms and international law,” Derlicka-Rosenbauer said.
The challenge now is to convince the biggest users and producers of cluster munitions to join the treaty – a difficult feat when militarised states are actively moving in the opposite direction and expanding their arsenals amid increased geopolitical tensions. She hopes the review conference will nevertheless bring renewed attention to the issue.
The meeting is taking place in Laos, the most heavily contaminated country in the world, 16 years after it hosted the first meeting of parties in 2010. For Tollefsen, holding the review conference in an affected country matters because discussions can become abstract and the real cost of these weapons on civilians’ lives can be overlooked. “Sometimes, when the discussions take place in places like Geneva, people don’t realise the human aspect of it,” he said.
“What we really need from this convention now is … most big military powers to join,” Ahmed said, noting that only three countries have become states parties in the last five years, which was “too few”.
“This norm is not a hundred per cent there. It’s not a customary international law rule,” he said. “But you see a big corpus of states starting to say that these weapons are problematic and need to be banned for perpetuity.”
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