Summary

Signatory Tanzania has pledged to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but has not submitted the ratification request to parliament for approval. Tanzania has participated in several meetings of the convention, most recently in September 2019, and voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution on the convention in December 2019.

Tanzania states that it has not used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

The United Republic of Tanzania signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008.

In September 2019, Tanzania told States Parties that the process to ratify the convention was “ongoing.”[1] It has pledged to ratify the convention on several occasions, but has not submitted the ratification request to parliament for consideration and approval.[2] Tanzania did not provide an update to its ratification status in 2020 but described cluster munitions as some of the “most immediate security challenge[s] to individuals, societies, and states worldwide.”[3]

Tanzania participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and worked hard to achieve a strong and comprehensive treaty text during the Dublin negotiations in May 2008.[4]

Tanzania attended the convention’s Ninth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2019, where it urged states that have not yet done so to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[5] This marked its first participation in a meeting of the convention since 2014.[6] It was invited to but did not attend the first part of the convention’s Second Review Conference held virtually in November 2020.

In December 2020, Tanzania voted in favor of a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that called on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to join “as soon as possible.”[7] It has voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Tanzania is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Tanzania has stated several times that it has not produced, stockpiled, transferred, or used cluster munitions.[8]

Policy

The United Republic of Tanzania signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 13 November 2000, becoming a State Party on 1 May 2001. It enacted new legislation specifically to implement the Mine Ban Treaty.

Tanzania served as the co-rapporteur and later co-chair of the Standing Committee on Stockpile Destruction from 2004–2006.

Tanzania is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Tanzania is a signatory state to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Production, use, transfer, and stockpiling

Tanzania has never produced or exported antipersonnel mines. Tanzania used mines in Uganda in 1979 and in Mozambique in 1986–1988. Its stockpiles consisted mainly of mines of Chinese, British, and Indian origin.[1]

Tanzania completed destruction of its stockpile of 22,841 antipersonnel mines in July 2004, well ahead of its 1 May 2005 treaty-mandated deadline.[2] It initially reported 1,146 antipersonnel mines retained for training and development purposes but reported an apparent total of 1,780 by the end of May 2009. It has not provided updated numbers since 2009.

In November 2017, six children were killed and 25 injured due to the explosion of a grenade that they were playing with at a primary school in the northwest of the United Republic of Tanzania.[1]

The total number of mine/ERW casualties in Tanzania is not known. Due to incomplete data collection, casualties may have been under-reported.The last reported mine casualties occurred in 1999: two men were killed in a mine explosion while cultivating land at the border; a young boy was killed while grazing cattle in the Ngara district in the northwest; and a Tanzanian man was injured in Burundi while conducting cross-border trade.[2]