Summary: Signatory the Central African Republic has stated since 2013 that internal armed conflict has prevented its ratification of the convention. The Central African Republic voted in favor of a key UN resolution promoting implementation of the convention in December 2016. It has participated in the convention’s Meetings of States Parties, most recently in 2014. The Central African Republic states that it has never used, produced, or exported cluster munitions and that it has destroyed stocks of cluster munitions.

Policy

The Central African Republicsigned the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.

The current status of ratification is not known. Previously, in 2013, government representatives told the CMC that internal armed conflict has prevented ratification of the convention from proceeding.[1] Prior to the outbreak of conflict in 2013, government officials indicated that the ratification was on track.[2]

The Central African Republic participated in a regional meeting (Kampala, Uganda, in September 2008) of the diplomatic Oslo Process that created the convention.[3]

The Central African Republic has participated in every Convention on Cluster Munitions Meeting of States Parties except the Sixth Meeting of State Parties in Geneva in September 2016. It did not attend the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. The Central African Republic has participated in regional workshops on cluster munitions, most recently in Lome, Togo, in May 2013.

In December 2016, the Central African Republic voted in favor of a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[4]

The Central African Republic has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the continued use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2016.[5]

The Central African Republic is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

The Central African Republic has stated that it has never used, produced, or transferred cluster munitions and that it is not affected by cluster munition remnants.[6]

In September 2011, the Central African Republic informed States Parties that it had destroyed a considerable stockpile of cluster munitions.[7] In May 2012, a government representative clarified that the cluster munitions were recovered from a non-state armed group operating within the country.[8]