Guinea
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary: State Party Guinea ratified the convention on 21 October 2014. It participated in the convention’s First Review Conference in September 2015. Guinea has not yet provided its initial transparency report for the convention. Guinea is believed to stockpile cluster munitions, but is not known to have ever used, produced, or exported the weapons.
Policy
The Republic of Guinea signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 21 October 2014, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 April 2015.
It is not clear if Guinea intends to enact national implementation legislation for the convention.
As of 30 May 2016, Guinea had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was originally due in September 2015.
Guinea participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention, including the Dublin negotiations in May 2008, where it joined in the consensus adoption of the convention.[1]
Guinea attended its first meeting of the convention in September 2015, when it participated in the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
On 7 December 2015, Guinea voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[2] It has also voted in support of a UNGA resolution condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria.[3] Guinea has yet to provide its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibition on assistance, transit, foreign stockpiling, and prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions.
Guinea is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Guinea is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but it is believed to have a stockpile. Moldova has reported the transfer to Guinea in the year 2000 of 860 9M27K cluster munition rockets, each containing 30 submunitions, for Guinea’s 220mm Uragan multiple launch rocket system.[4]
Guinea must clarify the status of the stockpile in its forthcoming transparency report, as well as indicate if it intends to retain any cluster munitions for research and training purposes.
[1] For details on Guinea’s cluster munition policy and practice up to early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 86.
[2] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/54, 7 December 2015.
[3] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 69/189, 18 December 2014.
[4] Submission of the Republic of Moldova, UN Register of Conventional Arms, Report for Calendar Year 2000, 30 May 2001.
Mine Ban Policy
The Republic of Guinea signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified it on 8 October 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 April 1999. Guinea has never used, produced, or exported antipersonnel mines. Guinea has not enacted new legislation specifically to implement the Mine Ban Treaty. On 24 June 2004, Guinea submitted its initial Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report, which was due 28 September 1999, but it has not submitted subsequent annual reports. Guinea completed destruction of its stockpile of 3,174 antipersonnel mines in November 2003 and did not retain any mines for research or training purposes.
Guinea attended the Tenth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in November–December 2010, but did not attend the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in June 2011.
Guinea is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Guinea is not mine-affected but areas near the border with Sierra Leone are contaminated by unexploded ordnance.