Guinea

The Republic of Guinea signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo on 3 December 2008. The status of the ratification process is not known. Guinea is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Guinea did not attend the initial meeting in Oslo in February 2007 to launch the Oslo Process, but was present at the next two international diplomatic conferences to develop the convention text in Lima and Vienna. After missing the international conference in Wellington in February 2008, it participated in the African regional conference in Livingstone in March/April and the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.

At the Lima conference, Guinea promised its full support and cooperation in the development and implementation of the future treaty, emphasizing the importance of humanitarian provisions for victim assistance and clearance of cluster munition duds.^[1] At the Livingstone regional conference on 1 April 2008, Guinea endorsed the Livingstone Declaration, calling for a comprehensive treaty with a prohibition that should be “total and immediate.”^[2]

While unable to attend the Wellington conference, Guinea subscribed to the Wellington Declaration on 25 April 2008, thereby committing to participate fully in the formal negotiations in Dublin on the basis of the draft Wellington text.

During the Dublin negotiations, Guinea joined other African countries in opposing efforts to weaken the convention text, and notably opposed the inclusion of a transition period, arguing, “We can’t ban cluster munitions yet at the same time give ourselves time to think about these weapons being used.”^[3] At the end of the negotiations, Guinea said, “We have come up with something that has reconciled different positions” and described the new convention as marking significant progress in international law.^[4] It joined the consensus adoption of the convention.

Upon signing the convention in Oslo, Guinea’s Ambassador said Guinea would make every effort to ensure the provisions of the convention are translated into legally-binding domestic prohibitions.^[5]

Guinea is not believed to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but it is thought to have a stockpile. Moldova reported the transfer to Guinea in 2000 of 860 9M27K rockets, each containing 30 submunitions, for Guinea’s 220mm Uragan multiple launch rocket system.^[6] The size and content of Guinea’s current stockpile of cluster munitions is not known.