Summary: State Party Guinea-Bissau ratified the convention on 29 November 2010. It views existing legislation as sufficient to enforce its implementation of the convention. Guinea-Bissau has participated in every annual meeting of the convention. It voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015.

Guinea-Bissau states that it has not used or produced cluster munitions, but still has not formally confirmed this by submitting its initial transparency report for the convention, which was due in October 2011. Guinea-Bissau possesses cluster munitions of Soviet origin, but the size and content of the current stockpile is not known. It has requested technical and financial assistance to destroy the stocks.

Policy

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 29 November 2010, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 May 2011.

In May 2013, Guinea-Bissau stated that it considers existing laws as sufficient to ensure its implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and said that the country’s penal code allows it to sanction any violations.[1]

As of 21 July 2016, Guinea-Bissau still had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, originally due by 28 October 2011. In 2013 and 2011, it blamed the delay on a lack of information concerning its stockpiled cluster munitions.[2]

Guinea-Bissau participated in some meetings of the Oslo Process that created the convention, including the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008, where it supported other African states in opposing efforts to weaken the convention text and joined in the consensus adoption of the text.[3]

Guinea-Bissau has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention and intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011–2015 as well as regional meetings on cluster munitions, most recently in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.[4] It was invited to, but did not attend the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015.

On 7 December 2015, Guinea-Bissau voted in favor of the first UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[5]

Guinea-Bissau is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Guinea-Bissau has not elaborated its views on certain important issues relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention, such as the prohibition on transit, the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, and the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions.

Use, production, and transfer

Guinea-Bissau stated in 2008 that it does not use or produce cluster munitions.[6] It is not known to have exported cluster munitions, but imported and stockpiles them

Stockpile destruction

Guinea-Bissau possesses cluster munitions of Soviet origin, but the size and content of the current stockpile is not known.[7] In June 2011, the director of Guinea-Bissau’s National Mine Action Coordination Center (Centro Nacional de Coordenação da Acção Anti-Minas, CAAMI) said that it was conducting an inventory of the quantities, types, and origins of the stockpile held at an air force base in Bissau City.[8] RBK-series air-dropped bombs and PTAB-2.5 submunitions were among munitions ejected by an explosion at the Paiol de Bra ammunition storage facility on the outskirts of Bissau City in 2000.[9]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Guinea-Bissau is required to destroy all its stockpiled cluster munitions as soon as possible, but not later than 1 May 2019.

Guinea-Bissau has stated several times that it requires assistance to destroy its stockpiled cluster munitions.[10] In 2013, Guinea-Bissau said it requested assistance from the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) to destroy its stockpile.[11] Guinea-Bissau said that a 2011 technical assessment by UNMAS found the weapons were held at armed forces locations “in very bad conditions.”[12]

Guinea-Bissau has not responded to the Monitor’s 2016 request for an update on the status of its stockpile destruction efforts.

Retention

Guinea-Bissau has not indicated if it will retain cluster munitions for research or training purposes.