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Belize
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
Belize has not yet acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It remains the only country in Central America that has not joined the ban convention.
Belize participated in its first meeting on cluster munitions in December 2013, when it attended a regional workshop, but its representative did not make any statements at the meeting.[1] Previously, in 2010, Belize informed the Monitor that it was “considering the feasibility” of joining the convention.[2]
Belize participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and sought a strong treaty text.[3] At the conclusion of the Dublin negotiations, Belize joined in the consensus adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which it said would be forwarded to the capital with the “strongest recommendation for its adoption and endorsement.”[4]
Belize did not attend the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008 or any subsequent meetings of the convention, such as the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka in September 2013. In December 2013, Belize participated in its first meeting on cluster munitions when it attended a regional workshop in Santiago, Chile and endorsed a declaration committing to join efforts that permit the early establishment of a cluster munitions-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean.[5]
Belize 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 “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[6]
Belize is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It has not joined the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Belize has stated that is has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[7]
[1] The representative was Lt. Col. James Requena from the Belize Defence Force, who serves as the country’s OPCW focal point. See List of Participants, Santiago Workshop on Cluster Munitions, 12–13 December 2013.
[2] Letter FA/UN/32/10 (2) from Nyasha Laing, Legal Officer for Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, 25 March 2010.
[3] For more information, see ICBL, Cluster Munition Monitor 2010 (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, October 2010), p. 198.
[4] Summary Record of the Committee of the Whole, Sixteenth Session: 28 May 2008, Dublin Diplomatic Conference, CCM/CW/SR/16, 18 June 2008.
[5] “Santiago Declaration: Toward the early establishment of a Cluster Munitions Free Zone in Latin America and the Caribbean,” presented to the Conference by Christian Guillermet, Deputy Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN in Geneva, in Santiago, 13 December 2013.
[6] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 68/182, 18 December 2013. Belize voted in support of a similar resolution on 15 May 2013.
[7] Letter FA/UN/32/10 (2) from Nyasha Laing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, 25 March 2010.
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