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Tonga
Mine Ban Policy
Mine ban policy overview
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Mine Ban Treaty status |
Not a State Party |
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Pro-mine ban UNGA voting record |
Voted in favor of Resolution 66/29 in December 2011, as in previous years |
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Participation in Mine Ban Treaty meetings |
Did not participate in the Tenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November–December 2010 |
Policy
The Kingdom of Tonga has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.
Tonga’s current views on Mine Ban Treaty accession are not known. Previously in October 2009, Tonga’s permanent representative to the UN in New York, Ambassador Sonatane Tu’akinamolahi Taumoepeau Tupou, told the ICBL that the question of Mine Ban Treaty accession had been reviewed by several government departments and must now receive final approval from the cabinet and then the privy council.[1] In 2007, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said Tonga lacked the internal resources needed to complete the necessary accession procedures.[2]
Tonga participated in a regional workshop on the Mine Ban Treaty in Port Vila, Vanuatu in May 2007, but it has never attended a formal meeting of the Mine Ban Treaty, even as an observer.
Tonga has stated that it has never produced, transferred, or stockpiled antipersonnel mines.[3]
Tonga is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
[1] ICBL meeting with Amb. Sonatane Tu’akinamolahi Taumoepeau Tupou, Permanent Mission of Tonga to the UN, New York, 14 October 2009. See ICBL, “Report on CMC/ICBL Lobby Meetings: UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, 12–23 October 2009.”
[2] Remarks of Tonga, Regional Workshop Towards a Mine-Free Pacific, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 3 May 2007. Notes by the Monitor.
[3] Fax from Falekava Kupu, on behalf of the Acting Chief Secretary and Secretary for the Cabinet, Prime Minister’s Office, 14 August 2001.
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