Guinea

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 25 June 2019

Summary: State Party Guinea ratified the convention on 21 October 2014. It has participated in the convention’s meetings, but not since 2016. Guinea voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution on the convention in December 2018.

Guinea is not known to have ever used, produced, or exported cluster munitions. It is believed to possess a stockpile, but must provide an initial transparency report for the convention to formally confirm this and disclose information on the types and quantities. The report was due 30 September 2015.

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.

Guinea has not indicated if it plans to enact national implementation legislation for the convention.

As of 15 June 2019, Guinea had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the convention, which was originally due by 30 September 2015. Timely submission is a legal obligation. Guinea has not offered an explanation for its failure to provide the report.

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 has attended some of the convention’s meetings, including the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. [2] It was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Eighth Meeting of States Parties in September 2018.

In December 2018, Guinea voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. [3] It has voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Guinea has not elaborated 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 currently possess a stockpile. Moldova has reported that it transferred 860 9M27K cluster munition rockets, each containing 30 fragmentation submunitions, to Guinea in the year 2000 for use in its 220mm Uragan multi-barrel rocket launchers. [4]

Guinea must clarify the status of the stockpile in its transparency report, which was due 30 September 2015. If it possesses stocks, Guinea is obligated to ensure their destruction as soon as possible—which it apparently has not done—and no later than April 2023.

Guinea has not indicated if it intends to 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] Guinea attended the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2010–2011, and 2016.

 [3] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 73/54, 5 December 2018.

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


Mine Ban Policy

Last updated: 18 December 2019

Policy

The Republic of Guinea signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified it on 8 October 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 April 1999. Guinea has not enacted new legislation specifically to implement the Mine Ban Treaty.

Guinea occasionally attends meetings of the treaty, most recently the Fifteenth Meeting of States Parties in Santiago in November–December 2016, and prior to that the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties in Cambodia in November–December 2011. On 24 June 2004, Guinea submitted its initial Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report, which was due 28 September 1999, but it has not submitted subsequent annual reports.

Guinea is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Guinea is party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Production, use, transfer, stockpiling

Guinea has never used, produced, or exported antipersonnel mines. Guinea completed destruction of its stockpile of 3,174 antipersonnel mines in November 2003 and did not retain any mines for research or training purposes.

Guinea is not mine-affected but areas near the border with Sierra Leone are contaminated by unexploded ordnance.