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Gambia
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Republic of the Gambia signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.
The Gambia has given several updates on its ratification of the convention since 2010, but there appears to have been little progress.[1] In May 2013, the Gambia informed a regional meeting that the ratification was awaiting cabinet approval before it could be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration and adoption.[2]
The Gambia participated in two meetings of the Oslo Process and, while it did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, it signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo in December 2008.[3]
The Gambia has continued to engage in the work of the convention despite not ratifying. It attended the convention’s Meeting of States Parties in 2010, 2011, and 2012 but was absent from the Fourth Meeting of States Parties held in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. The Gambia has not participated in any of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, such as those held in April 2014.
The Gambia attended a regional seminar on the convention in Lomé, Togo in May 2013, where it endorsed the Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions committing to take specific and concerted actions to ratify the convention at the earliest opportunity.[4]
The Gambia voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at the Syrian government’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[5]
The Gambia is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
The Gambia has stated on several occasions that it has never used, produced, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[6]
[1] Statement of the Gambia, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, 28 May 2012; statement of the Gambia, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, 14 September 2011. Notes by the CMC; and statement of the Gambia, Convention on Cluster Munitions First Meeting of States Parties, Vientiane, 10 November 2010. Notes by the CMC.
[2] Statement of the Gambia, Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 23 May 2013.
[3] For details on the Gambia’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), pp. 77–78.
[4] “Lomé Strategy on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” Lomé Regional Seminar on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lomé, Togo, 23 May 2013.
[5] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/RES/68/182, 18 December 2013. The Gambia voted in favor of a similar resolution on 15 May 2013.
[6] Statement by Ousman Sonko, Secretary of State for the Interior, Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference, in Oslo, 4 December 2008; statement by Ousman Sonko, Minister of the Interior and NGO Affairs, Berlin Conference on the Destruction of Cluster Munitions, in Berlin, 26 June 2009; statement of the Gambia, Convention on Cluster Munitions First Meeting of States Parties, Vientiane, 10 November 2010. Notes by the CMC; statement of the Gambia, Convention on Cluster Munitions Second Meeting of States Parties, Beirut, 14 September 2011. Notes by the CMC; and statement of the Gambia, Accra Regional Conference on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Accra, 28 May 2012.
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