About Us
Our Research Products
Samoa
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Independent State of Samoa signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 28 April 2010, and the convention entered into force for Samoa on 1 October 2010.
The Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act 2012, which came into effect on 27 April 2012, serves as Samoa’s national implementation legislation for the convention.[1]
Samoa provided its initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 transparency report on 7 September 2012.[2] As of 14 May 2014, it has yet to provide annual updated Article 7 reports due by 30 April 2013 and 2014.
Samoa joined the Oslo Process in February 2008 and supported the most comprehensive ban possible during the Dublin negotiations.[3] Samoa attended the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.
Samoa has attended one of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties since 2008, the Third Meeting of States Parties held in Oslo, Norway in September 2012, where it announced the enactment of its national implementing legislation.[4] It has not participated in intersessional meetings of the convention held in Geneva.
Samoa has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the Syrian government’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.”[5]
Samoa is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Interpretive issues
Samoa’s implementing legislation prohibits assistance with prohibited activities. The law specifically makes it an offense for members of Samoa’s police forces to expressly request the use of cluster munitions while engaged in operations, exercises, or other military activities with the armed forces of a state not party to the convention, when the choice of munitions used is within the exclusive control of the police.[6] The act applies extraterritorially to Samoan citizens or residents, members of the police, and corporations.
The Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act 2012 makes it an offense to invest in cluster munitions development or production. According to Part II, Section 6(1) (f), the offense pertains to persons who “directly or indirectly invest funds with the intention that the funds be used, or knowing that they are to be used, in the development and production of cluster munitions.”
Samoa has not yet indicated if it agrees with the view of the CMC that the transit of cluster munitions is prohibited by the convention.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
In its Article 7 report Samoa declared that it has no stockpiled cluster munitions and confirmed that “Samoa has never had production facilities” for cluster munitions.[7] Samoa confirmed that it is not retaining cluster munitions for training purposes.[8]
Samoa declared in September 2012 that it “has never used, produced, stockpiled or transferred cluster munitions.”[9]
[1] Section 6 of the law includes penal sanctions of no more than seven years imprisonment and not more than 10,000 “penalty units” for violating its absolute ban on cluster munitions. Samoa annexed a copy of the Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act 2012 to its initial Article 7 report.
[2] The report covers the period from 1 April 2011 to 31 December 2011. Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, 7 September 2012.
[3] For more details, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 148.
[4] Statement of Samoa, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2012.
[5] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/RES/68/182, 18 December 2013. Samoa voted in support of a similar resolution on 15 May 2013.
[6] Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act 2012, Part II Activities Related to Cluster Munitions, Section 6(2) (a) and (b).
[7] Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 Report, Forms B and E, 7 September 2012.
[8] Ibid., Form C.
[9] Statement of Samoa, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2012.
Send us your feedback on this profile
Send the Monitor your feedback by filling out this form. Responses will be channeled to editors, but will not be available online. Click if you would like to send an attachment. If you are using webmail, send attachments to .