Bahamas

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 04 September 2020

Ten-Year Review: Non-signatory the Bahamas has never made a public comment on cluster munitions. It has never attended a meeting of the convention, but an official indicated in 2016 that the government was preparing to accede to it. The Bahamas is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

The Commonwealth of the Bahamas has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

The Bahamas has never commented publicly on cluster munitions, but its representatives have engaged about the convention and its humanitarian objectives with campaigners.[1] In October 2016, officials said the government was working to accede to the convention and saw no objections to joining.[2]

The Bahamas did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the convention in 2008.

The Bahamas has never attended a formal meeting of the convention, but a government official participated in a regional workshop on the convention in Grenada in March 2020.

The Bahamas voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in December 2019, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[3] It has voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

The Bahamas has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions that express outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2019.[4] Similarly, it has voted in favor of UN Human Rights Council Resolutions condemning use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in June 2020.[5]

The Bahamas is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

The Bahamas is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.



[1] For example, in an August 2015 letter, the country’s representative to Canada thanked Cluster Munition Coalition member Mines Action Canada for inviting the Bahamas to accede to the convention. Letter to Paul Hannon, Executive Director, Mines Action Canada, from Roselyn Horton, High Commission for the Bahamas, Ottawa, 25 August 2015.

[2] ICBL-CMC meeting with the delegation of the Bahamas to UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, October 2016.

[3]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 74/62, 12 December 2019.

[4]Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 74/169, 18 December 2019.

[5] See, “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” Human Rights Council Resolution 43/28, 22 June 2020.