The Republic of Cape Verde signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified it on 14 May 2001, becoming a State Party on 1 November 2001. Cape Verde has never used, produced, or exported antipersonnel mines. Legislation to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically has not been enacted. Cape Verde submitted its initial Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report on 31 March 2009, but has not submitted annual reports since.

As part of a NATO training operation, Latvian explosive ordnance disposal troops destroyed Cape Verde’s stockpile of 1,471 antipersonnel mines in June 2006. Cape Verde’s deadline for destruction of stockpiled antipersonnel mines was 1 November 2005. Cape Verde retained 120 mines for training purposes.[1] It has not subsequently reported on the status of these mines.

Cape Verde did not attend the Tenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November–December 2010, but it attended the Mine Ban Treaty intersessional Standing Committee meetings in June 2011.

Cape Verde is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines, but not CCW Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Cape Verde signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 19 October 2010. The convention entered into force for Cape Verde on 1 April 2011.

Cape Verde deposited its instrument of ratification during a Special Event on the Convention on Cluster Munitions held during the UN General Assembly’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in New York on 19 October 2010.[1] Cape Verde was the 43^rd state to ratify the convention. The National Assembly approved Resolution No. 137/VII/2010 to ratify the convention in late June 2010, which was then signed by the President and published in the official gazette on 26 July 2010.[2]

It is not known if Cape Verde has begun the process of preparing national implementation legislation or other measures.

Cape Verde’s initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 report is due by 28 October 2011.

Cape Verde did not participate in any meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, before it signed the convention in Oslo in December 2008. It has not attended any international or regional meetings related to the convention since 2008, such as the First Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Vientiane, Lao PDR in November 2010.

Cape Verde is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), but has not ratified CCW Protocol V on explosive remnants of war and has not actively participated in CCW deliberations on cluster munitions in recent years. 

Cape Verde is not known to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.