Saint Lucia

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 13 September 2021

Summary

Saint Lucia acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 15 September 2020, becoming the 110th State Party. Saint Lucia has never attended a meeting of the convention, but it voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2020.

Saint Lucia is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions, but must submit an initial Article 7 transparency report to confirm its cluster munition-free status.

Policy

Saint Lucia acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 15 September 2020 and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 March 2021.

Saint Lucia did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the convention.

Saint Lucia has never participated in a meeting of the convention, even as an observer. However, it has attended regional workshops on the convention, such as one hosted in St. George’s, Grenada in March 2020.[1]

Saint Lucia’s initial Article 7 transparency report for the convention is due by 28 August 2021.

In December 2020, Saint Lucia voted in favor of a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution urging states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[2] Saint Lucia has voted in favor of this annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Saint Lucia has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2020.[3]

Saint Lucia is a party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Saint Lucia is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions. Saint Lucia must provide a transparency report to confirm its cluster munition-free status.



[1] Saint Lucia also attended a regional workshop on cluster munitions in Santiago, Chile in December 2013. It did not make a statement, but endorsed the workshop’s declaration calling for the “early establishment” of a cluster munition-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean. See, “Santiago Declaration: Toward the early establishment of a Cluster Munitions Free Zone in Latin America and the Caribbean,” presented to the conference by Christian Guillermet, Deputy Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN in Geneva, 13 December 2013.

[2]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 75/62, 7 December 2020.

[3]Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 75/193, 16 December 2020. Saint Lucia voted in favor of similar UNGA resolutions in 2017–2019.