Summary: State Party Belize acceded to the convention in September 2014. It is preparing national legislation to implement the convention’s provisions. Belize has yet to provide a transparency report for the convention to formally confirm it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

Belize acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 2 September 2014 and became a State Party on 1 March 2015.

In September 2014, Belize informed States Parties that it was in the initial stages of drafting domestic legislation to implement the convention’s provisions.[1]

As of 24 May 2016, Belize had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report, which was due by 28 August 2015.

Belize participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and sought a strong treaty text.[2] At the conclusion of the Dublin negotiations, Belize joined in the consensus adoption of the convention, which it said would be forwarded to the capital with the “strongest recommendation for its adoption and endorsement.”[3]

However, Belize did not attend the convention’s Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008 and did not participate in another meeting on cluster munitions until it attended a regional workshop in Santiago, Chile in 2013. Its first participation in a meeting of the convention was the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica, where it announced its accession on the opening day of the meeting.[4] Belize did not attend the First Review Conference of the convention in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015.

Belize voted in favor of the first UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 7 December 2015, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[5] Belize has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2014.[6]

Belize is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Belize stated in a 2010 letter that is has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[7] In September 2014, its representative affirmed that “Belize has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.”[8]