Tunisia
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary: State Party Tunisia ratified the convention on 28 September 2010 and has participated in several meetings of the convention, most recently in 2017.Tunisia voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2017.
Tunisia told the Monitor in 2011 that it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions. It must submit its initial transparency report for the convention to formally confirm this.
Policy
The Republic of Tunisia signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 12 January 2009, ratified on 28 September 2010, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 March 2011.
Tunisia informed the Monitor in April 2011 that it adheres to the convention under the terms of its ratification law enacted in February 2010.
As of 25 June 2018, Tunisia still had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, originally due by 28 August 2011.
Tunisia participated in one regional meeting of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, in Livingstone, Zambia in March 2008. It was the first country to sign the convention at the UN in New York after the convention was opened for signature at the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.[1]
Tunisia has participated in several of the convention’s meetings.[2] It did not make a statement during the convention’s Seventh Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2017.
Tunisia voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in December 2017 that urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[3]
Tunisia has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions that express outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2017.[4]
Tunisia is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Tunisia has informed the Monitor that it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.[5] It must provide the UN with an initial transparency report for the convention to formally confirm this statement.
[1] For details on Tunisia’s policy and practice regarding cluster munitions through early 2009, see Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 171.
[2] Tunisia participated in the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2011, 2012, and 2017. It also participated in the convention’s intersessional meetings in 2012 and 2014.
[3] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 72/54, 4 December 2017. It voted in favor of previous UNGA resolutions promoting implementation of the convention in 2015 and 2016.
[4] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 72/191, 19 December 2017. Tunisia voted in favor of similar resolutions on 19 December 2016, 23 December 2015, 18 December 2014, and 15 May and 18 December 2013.
[5] “La Tunisie n’a aucune activité en lien avec la production, le stockage, le transfert ou l’utilisation des armes à sous-munitions.” Letter from Permanent Mission of Tunisia to the UN in Geneva, to Mary Wareham, Human Rights Watch, 10 April 2011.