Haiti

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 07 June 2016

Summary: Signatory Haiti last indicated that it was considering ratification of the convention in 2012 and the current status of the process is not known. Haiti has attended two Meetings of States Parties of the convention, most recently in 2014. Haiti is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

The Republic of Haiti signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 28 October 2009.

The status of Haiti’s ratification of the convention is not currently known. Previously, in January 2012, the president of the Senate said that the National Assembly was considering ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1]

Haiti did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Haiti was invited to, but did not attend the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. It participated in the convention’s Meetings of State Parties in 2013 and 2014. Haiti also attended a workshop on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in December 2013.[2]

On 7 December 2015, Haiti was absent from the vote 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.”[3] It however voted in favor of the UNGA resolution during the first round of voting on 4 November 2015.[4]

In 2014, Haiti voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria.[5]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

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



[1]Haïti – Politique: Assemblée Nationale en vue de ratifier des accords internationaux” (“Haiti – Politics: National Assembly to ratify international agreements”), Haiti Libre, 30 January 2012.

[2] The meeting issued a declaration urging the “early establishment” of a cluster munitions-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean. “Santiago Declaration Toward the early establishment of a Cluster Munitions Free Zone in Latin America and the Caribbean,” presented to the Conference by Christian Guillermet, Deputy Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN in Geneva, Santiago, 13 December 2013.

[3]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/54, 7 December 2015.

[4]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 70/L.49/Rev.1, 4 November 2015. See the voting record.

[5] Haiti did not participate in the vote on “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 70/234, 23 December 2015. However, Haiti voted in favor of similar resolutions on 15 May and 18 December 2013, and 18 December 2014.