Policy

The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Resource constraints appear to have hindered Timor-Leste’s accession to the ban convention. In April 2012, government representatives informed the CMC that Timor-Leste supports the convention but has not been able to join yet due to limited human resources, other treaty commitments, and the consolidation of state-building efforts.[1] In 2010 and 2011, government representatives also cited these same reasons for Timor-Leste’s lack of accession to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2]

Timor-Leste participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and joined in the consensus adoption of the convention text in Dublin on 30 May 2008, but did not sign the convention at the Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.

Timor-Leste attended a regional conference on cluster munitions in Bali, Indonesia in November 2009. It participated as an observer in the convention’s First Meeting of States Parties in Vientiane, Lao PDR in November 2010 and Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut in September 2011, but did not make any statements. Timor-Leste has not participated in any of the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva.

Timor-Leste voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013 which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[3]

Timor-Leste is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Timor-Leste is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.