Governments should reinforce the global ban on cluster munitions and call upon those still using or producing these indiscriminate weapons to promptly join the treaty banning them, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing the "Cluster Munition Monitor 2025" by the Cluster Munition Coalition. In September 2025, Vanuatu became the 112th state to join the Convention, while in March 2025, Lithuania became the first state ever to withdraw from the convention, a major setback despite progress on humanitarian disarmament elsewhere.
The 109-page report assesses all countries' adherence to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions and requires destruction of stockpiles, clearance of areas contaminated by cluster munition remnants, and victim assistance.
"Civilians around the world continue to lose their lives and limbs to cluster munitions, even from weapons used decades ago," said Mark Hiznay, associate crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch, and an editor of the Cluster Munition Monitor 2025. "Members of the Convention on Cluster Munitions should abide by the treaty's provisions and encourage other governments to immediately stop using cluster munitions."
Cluster munitions can be fired from the ground by artillery, rockets, missiles, or mortars, or dropped by aircraft. They typically open in the air, dispersing multiple explosive submunitions or bomblets over a wide area. Due to their wide area effect, they cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants, especially when used in populated areas. In addition, many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving unexploded duds that can indiscriminately injure and kill like landmines for years, until they are found and destroyed.
While governments continue to make progress, the global ban on cluster munitions is being tested. Lithuania's withdrawal from the convention on March 6, 2025, triggered condemnation from at least 47 countries.
Countries that are not party to the convention, including Russia and Ukraine, continued to use cluster munitions in 2024 and 2025. Russia has used stocks of old cluster munitions and newly developed models in Ukraine since 2022. Between July 2023 and October 2024, the United States, which is not a treaty member, announced at least seven transfers of cluster munitions to Ukraine.
New use of cluster munitions during the reporting period (mid-2024 to mid-2025) was also documented in Myanmar and Syria, although they do not appear to have been used in Syria since the overthrow of the Assad government in December 2024.
In July, the Thai military appeared to admit it had used cluster munitions in its border conflict with Cambodia. A month earlier, the Israeli military claimed that an Iranian ballistic missile attack on central Israel had involved cluster munitions.
Since the convention was adopted in 2008, none of the 112 ratifying countries have used cluster munitions, saving countless civilians from this indiscriminate weapon.
In compliance with the convention, countries have surveyed and cleared substantial amounts of affected land, including more than 100 square kilometers in 2024 alone. That led to the destruction of at least 83,452 unexploded submunitions and other cluster munition remnants, the highest number destroyed in any given year over the past five years.
All members of the convention had eliminated their stockpiles by the end of 2023, destroying 1.49 million cluster munitions and 179 million submunitions.
Although the number of annual casualties from cluster munitions has decreased substantially since the convention's adoption, these weapons continue to harm civilians. In 2024, the latest full year covered by the report, all reported cluster munition casualties were civilians, of whom 42 percent were children.
The casualties demonstrate the need to clear more contaminated land and to provide more assistance to victims. While some counties increased their assistance to victims in 2024, many affected countries continued to struggle to provide adequate and accessible services to survivors, in part due to funding cuts by donor states.
"The Convention on Cluster Munitions has over many years made significant progress in reducing the human suffering caused by cluster munitions," Hiznay said. "Governments should now act to reinforce the stigma against these indiscriminate weapons and condemn their continued use."
The Cluster Munition Monitor 2025 is the 16th annual monitoring report by the Cluster Munition Coalition, the global coalition of nongovernmental organizations co-founded by Human Rights Watch in 2003. The report will be presented to countries attending the 13th meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the United Nations in Geneva on September 16-19.
