Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The Republic of Niger signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 2 June 2009. It was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

In May 2013, Niger stated that a draft law implementing the provisions of the Convention on Cluster Munitions was being prepared.[1] A government official informed the Monitor the draft law would be submitted to the National Assembly in 2014.[2] Previously, in 2010, a government official said that Niger would begin preparing national implementation law in 2011.[3]

As of 26 June 2013, Niger had not yet submitted its initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 report, originally due by 28 January 2011, or annual updated reports due in 2012 and 2013.

Niger participated in the Oslo Process that produced the convention and supported a comprehensive treaty without exception.[4] Niger has continued to actively engage in the work of the convention in 2012 and the first half of 2013. Niger attended the convention’s Third Meeting of States Parties in Oslo, Norway in September 2012 and intersessional meetings in Geneva in April 2013, but did not make any statements at either meeting.

Niger also attended a regional meeting on the universalization of the convention in Lomé, Togo in May 2013, where it made a statement urging all states that have not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions to join its “family of States Parties.” Niger described its pride at being one of the first countries in Africa and the eighth country in the world to ratify the convention.[5]

In May 2013, Niger expressed its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention. An official informed the Monitor that Niger considered transit and foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions on the territory of a State Party prohibited under the convention. Similarly, Niger considered assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions and investment in the production of cluster munitions to be banned by the convention.[6]

Niger has not made a national statement condemning Syria’s use of cluster munitions, but it endorsed the Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in May 2013, which expresses “grave concern over the recent and on-going use of cluster munitions” and calls for the immediate end to the use of these weapons.[7]

Niger is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

In 2009, Niger confirmed that it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[8]