Gabon

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 05 July 2017

Summary: Non-signatory Gabon has expressed its desire to join the convention. Gabon participated in the convention’s First Review Conference in September 2015 and voted in favor of the first UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. Gabon states that it has never used, stockpiled, or transferred cluster munitions. It is not known to have produced them.

Policy

The Gabonese Republic has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

In an April 2017 letter sent to Cluster Munition Monitor, Gabon’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva wrote that “Gabonese authorities have already been seized on this subject and that they did not consider it appropriate for Gabon, at least in the immediate future, to accede to this Convention [on Cluster Munitions] for internal reasons.”[1]

The response is surprising given that Gabon has made several positive statements since 2011 expressing its desire to accede to the convention.[2] Gabon has participated as an observer in the convention’s meetings, telling States Parties at the First Review Conference in September 2015 that it shares the convention’s humanitarian goals and hopes to join.[3]

Gabon also voted in favor of the first UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in December 2015, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[4] It was however absent from the vote on a similar UNGA resolution on 5 December 2016.[5]

Gabon did not participate in the Oslo Process that led to the creation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[6]

It has participated as an observer in some of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties as well as the First Review Conference in 2015. It did not attend the convention’s Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2016.

Gabon has participated in regional meetings on the convention, most recently in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in August 2016.[7] At the meeting, Gabonese officials met with Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) representatives, but said they did not have any update on efforts to accede.[8] Officials from Gabon also met with the CMC at the UN First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2016, which encouraged its accession and, in the interim, vote in support of the UNGA resolution on the convention.[9] Gabon has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2016.[10] It has also voted in favor of Human Rights Council resolutions that condemned the use of cluster munitions in Syria.[11]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Gabon has stated it has never used, stockpiled, or transferred cluster munitions.[12] It is not known to have ever produced the weapons.



[1] This is an unofficial translation from the original, which was in French: “Les autorities gabonaises avaient deja ete saisies a ce sujet et qu'elles n'avaient pas juge opportun pour le Gabon, du moins dans l'immediat, d'adherer a cette Convention, pour des raisons internes.” Letter No. 536MPGG/Ed.K.M./2017 from Ambassador Marianne Odette Bibalou Bounda, Permanent Representative of Gabon to the UN in Geneva, 20 April 2017. Received by mail on 14 June 2017.

[2] Statement of Gabon, Convention on Cluster Munitions Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Lusaka, 11 September 2013. Gabon was represented by Lt. Col. Emile Blanchard Sadi, Focal Point of the Ministry of Defense on Weapons of Mass Destruction and Disarmament. In September 2012, the same representative said that Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba and its institutions are convinced of the merits and humanitarian objectives of the convention and acknowledged the need for Gabon to join “soon.” Statement by Lt. Col. Sadi, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2011.

[3] Statement of Gabon, First Review Conference for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 7–11 September 2015. Unofficial translation.

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

[5]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 71/45, 5 December 2016.

[6] In October 2010, Gabon attended a special event on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, held during the UNGA’s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security. CMC, “Special Event on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, 19 October 2010,” 22 October 2010.

[7] Convention on Cluster Munitions Ratification Seminar, Kampala, 29–30 May 2017; and “The Addis Ababa Commitment on Universalization and Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” Africa Regional Workshop on the Universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, 5 August 2016.

[8] ICBL-CMC meeting with Alain J. Mounguet Ingoule, Defense Attaché to the African Union, Ministry of Defense, and Jean Félix Akaga, Premier Secrétaire Général Adjoint, Ministry of Defense of Gabon, Addis Ababa, 5 August 2016.

[9] ICBL-CMC meeting with William Rodrigue Nyama, Nyana, Adviser, Permanent Mission of Gabon to the UN in New York, October 2016.

[10]Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 71/203, 19 December 2016. Gabon voted in favor of similar resolutions in 2013–2015.

[12] Statement by Lt. Col. Sadi, Convention on Cluster Munitions Third Meeting of States Parties, Oslo, 11 September 2011; and statement by Lt. Col. Sadi, Convention on Cluster Munitions Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Lusaka, 11 September 2013.