Nauru
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Republic of Nauru signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo on 3 December 2008, ratified on 4 February 2013, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 August 2013.
It is not known if Nauru will enact legislation or other national implementation measures to enforce the provisions of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
As of 14 May 2014, Nauru had not yet submitted its first Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 report, originally due by 28 January 2014.
Nauru expressed support for a ban on cluster munitions during the Oslo Process when it participated in the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions in February 2008 and endorsed the Wellington Declaration agreeing to the conclusion of a legally-binding instrument.[1] Nauru did not attend the subsequent Dublin negotiations of the convention or the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo.
Nauru has never attended a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has participated in regional meetings on the Pacific Islands Forum Regional Unexploded Ordnance Strategy in Koror, Palau in October 2012 and in Brisbane in June 2013.[2]
Nauru has not yet stated its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibition on transit, the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions, and the retention of cluster munitions and submunitions for training and development purposes.
Nauru has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning Syria’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.”[3]
Nauru is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Nauru is not known to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
[1] For more details on Nauru’s cluster munition policy and practice up to early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 123–124.
[2] The Pacific Regional Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) Workshop was jointly hosted by ICBL-CMC member organization Safe Ground (recently renamed from the Australian Network to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions) and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat with support from AusAID. Draft Outcomes Statement, Pacific Regional ERW Workshop, 27–28 June 2013. Provided to the Monitor by Loral Thompson, National Coordinator, Safe Ground, 30 March 2014.
[3] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/RES/68/182, 18 December 2013. Nauru voted in support of a similar resolution on 15 May 2013.