Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

Jamaica signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 12 June 2009, becoming the first Caribbean country to join. In June 2010, a government representative told the CMC that ratification was progressing, but could not provide a timetable for completion due to a legislative backlog.[1] 

In a statement to the UN General Assembly on 7 October 2009, Jamaica said that the Convention on Cluster Munitions represents “tangible results of the international community’s sustained efforts to eliminate the harm and suffering caused by cluster munitions and their indiscriminate effects on civilian populations in clear violation of international humanitarian law.”[2]

Jamaica has been the most active state in the Caribbean in promoting the convention and a ban on cluster munitions. In June 2009, just after signing the convention, Jamaica attended the Berlin Conference on the Destruction of Cluster Munitions. It also participated in the Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean on Cluster Munitions held in Santiago, Chile in September 2009, where it spoke in support of univerzalisation of the convention in the Caribbean.[3]  In June 2010, Jamaica attended the International Conference on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, also held in Santiago.

Jamaica participated in two of the Oslo Process international conferences to develop the convention text, in Vienna in December 2007 and in Wellington in February 2008. Later, on 9 May 2008, it subscribed to the Wellington Declaration in support of the negotiation of an instrument prohibiting cluster munitions. 

During the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, Jamaica advocated strongly for the most comprehensive convention possible. At the outset, Jamaica said it noted the reference in the draft text to “cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm” and proposed the alternative “cluster munitions as they cause unacceptable harm.”[4] Jamaica said it was not convinced that any cluster munitions cause “acceptable” harm.[5] It cautioned against allowing technological exemptions of cluster munitions that are not yet in operation and whose effects on the field cannot be properly assessed.[6]  Jamaica said it believed that Article 2(2)(c), which excluded from prohibition some weapons with submunitions, should not have been included in the convention.[7] It was one of 107 countries that adopted the convention text at the conclusion of the negotiations.

At a regional meeting to promote signature to the convention held in Quito, Ecuador in November 2008, Jamaica said that it was supportive of the convention, and was working internally to take a decision to sign.[8] Jamaica did not, however, participate in the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in December 2008.

On 25 September 2008, Jamaica gave its consent to be bound by the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), including CCW Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. Jamaica has not participated actively in CCW deliberations on cluster munitions in recent years.

Jamaica is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.