Guinea

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 03 July 2018

Summary: State Party Guinea ratified the convention on 21 October 2014. It has participated in the convention’s meetings and voted in favor of United Nations (UN) resolutions on the convention. Guinea is not known to have ever used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.

Guinea is believed to possess a stockpile of cluster munitions, but it must provide an initial transparency report for the convention to formally confirm this and disclose information on the types and quantities stockpiled.

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 unclear if Guinea will enact national implementation legislation for the convention.

As of 1 July 2018, Guinea had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report, which was originally due by 30 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 the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015 and the convention’s Sixth Meeting of States Parties in September 2016. It was invited to but did not attend the Seventh Meeting of States Parties in September 2017.

In December 2017, Guinea voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2]

Guinea has yet to elaborate its views on certain important issues relating to its interpretation and implementation of the convention, including the prohibition on assistance, transit, foreign stockpiling, and 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.

Guinea imported cluster munitions and is believed to possess a stockpile. Moldova has reported that it transferred 860 9M27K cluster munition rockets, each containing 30 submunitions, to Guinea in the year 2000 for use in the 220mm Uragan multiple launch rocket system.[3]

Guinea must clarify the status of the stockpile in its transparency report. If it possesses stocks, Guinea is obligated to ensure their destruction as soon as possible and no later than April 2023.

Guinea has not indicated if it will retain 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 72/54, 4 December 2017. It voted in favor of previous UNGA resolutions supporting the convention in 2015 and 2016.

[3] Submission of the Republic of Moldova, UN Register of Conventional Arms, Report for Calendar Year 2000, 30 May 2001.