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Sao Tome e Principe
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Policy
The Democratic Republic of São Tomé e Príncipe signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.
The status of São Tomé e Príncipe’s ratification of the convention is not known. Government officials last provided an update on the matter in November 2010.[1]
During the Oslo Process, São Tomé e Príncipe participated in the formal negotiations of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Dublin in May 2008, where it supported a comprehensive ban without exceptions.[2]
Despite not ratifying, São Tomé e Príncipe has continued to participate in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It participated in the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2010, 2012, and the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. It has not attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva since 2011 or regional meetings held in Ghana in 2012 or Togo in 2013.
São Tomé e Príncipe 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.”[3]
São Tomé e Príncipe is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
São Tomé e Príncipe has stated that it has never used cluster munitions.[4] It is not known to have ever produced, transferred, or stockpiled the weapons.
[1] A government representative informed the CMC that ratification had been delayed by elections, but would be due to be submitted to parliament in 2011. CMC meeting with Carlos Manuel Moreno, First Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Lassalete Neto Boa Morte, Ministry of Defence, in Vientiane, November 2010. Notes by the CMC.
[2] For details on São Tomé e Príncipe’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), p. 149.
[3] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 68/182, 18 December 2013.
[4] Statement of São Tomé e Príncipe, Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference, Oslo, 3 December 2008.
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