Tonga
Mine Ban Policy
Mine ban policy overview
|
Mine Ban Treaty status |
Not a State Party |
|
Pro-mine ban UNGA voting record |
Voted in favor of Resolution 66/29 in December 2011, as in previous years |
|
Participation in Mine Ban Treaty meetings |
Did not participate in the Tenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November–December 2010 |
Policy
The Kingdom of Tonga has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.
Tonga’s current views on Mine Ban Treaty accession are not known. Previously in October 2009, Tonga’s permanent representative to the UN in New York, Ambassador Sonatane Tu’akinamolahi Taumoepeau Tupou, told the ICBL that the question of Mine Ban Treaty accession had been reviewed by several government departments and must now receive final approval from the cabinet and then the privy council.[1] In 2007, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said Tonga lacked the internal resources needed to complete the necessary accession procedures.[2]
Tonga participated in a regional workshop on the Mine Ban Treaty in Port Vila, Vanuatu in May 2007, but it has never attended a formal meeting of the Mine Ban Treaty, even as an observer.
Tonga has stated that it has never produced, transferred, or stockpiled antipersonnel mines.[3]
Tonga is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
[1] ICBL meeting with Amb. Sonatane Tu’akinamolahi Taumoepeau Tupou, Permanent Mission of Tonga to the UN, New York, 14 October 2009. See ICBL, “Report on CMC/ICBL Lobby Meetings: UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, 12–23 October 2009.”
[2] Remarks of Tonga, Regional Workshop Towards a Mine-Free Pacific, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 3 May 2007. Notes by the Monitor.
[3] Fax from Falekava Kupu, on behalf of the Acting Chief Secretary and Secretary for the Cabinet, Prime Minister’s Office, 14 August 2001.
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Kingdom of Tonga has not yet acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Tonga has not made a formal statement to elaborate its policy on banning cluster munitions.
Tonga attended one meeting of the Oslo Process, the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions in February 2008, but it did not endorse the Wellington Declaration in support of the negotiation of an instrument prohibiting cluster munitions. Tonga did not attend the subsequent Dublin negotiations or the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo.
Tonga has not participated in any meetings of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It attended regional meetings on explosive remnants of war (ERW) in the Pacific held in Koror, Palau in October 2012 and Brisbane, Australia in June 2013.[1]
Tonga has voted in favor of recent UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian government’s cluster munition use, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[2]
Tonga is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty.
Tonga is not known to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
[1] The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and ICBL-CMC member organization Safe Ground (formerly the Australian Network to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions) co-hosted the Brisbane workshop with the support of AusAID. Draft Outcomes Statement, Pacific Regional ERW Workshop, 27–28 June 2013. Provided to the Monitor by Lorel Thompson, National Coordinator, Safe Ground, 30 March 2014.
[2] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/RES/68/182, 18 December 2013. Tonga voted in favor of a similar resolution on 15 May 2013.