Rwanda
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Republic of Rwanda signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.
The status of Rwanda’s ratification of the convention is not known.[1] Previously, in 2010, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation said that ratification was awaiting parliamentary approval by the Chamber of Deputies and then the Senate.[2] In 2009, the CMC was informed that the Council of Ministers had approved ratification and it was awaiting transmission to parliament.[3]
In November 2013, the government’s Rwanda Law Reform Commission in cooperation with the ICRC held a three-day seminar on international humanitarian law attended by a number of government officials, which concluded there is a need to prioritize the country’s ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Arms Trade Treaty.[4]
Rwanda attended one regional meeting (Kampala, Uganda in September 2008) of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions before signing the convention in Oslo in December 2008.[5]
Rwanda has participated in one meeting of the convention, in September 2012 when it attended the Third Meeting of the States Parties in Oslo, Norway. It was formally invited to, but did not attend the convention’s Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013.
Rwanda has not made any statement expressing concern at Syria’s use of cluster munitions.
Rwanda is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
In 2008, Rwanda stated that it does not use, produce, transfer, or stockpile cluster munitions.[6]
[1] In December 2013, a Rwandan official told the CMC that there was no update available on the status of ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. CMC meeting with Jean de Dieu Budurege, Multilateral Officer, Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN in Geneva, Mine Ban Treaty Thirteenth Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 4 December 2013.
[2] Email from Eugene Mussolini, Association of Landmine Survivors and Amputees of Rwanda, 21 July 2010.
[3] Email from Albert Nzamukwereka, Country Program Coordinator for Rwanda, Survivor Corps, 16 November 2009.
[4] Rwanda Law Reform Commission web post, “Seminar on International Humanitarian Law,” November 2013.
[5] Rwanda also attended a regional meeting on the convention in Kampala, Uganda in September 2008 and the Berlin Conference on the Destruction of Cluster Munitions in June 2009. For details on Rwanda’s cluster munition policy and practice through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 147.
[6] Statement of Rwanda, Kampala Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, 30 September 2008. Notes by the CMC.