Bahamas
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary
Non-signatory the Bahamas has never made a public comment on cluster munitions or attended a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but has voted in favor of every annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention. 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 met campaigners to discuss the convention and the humanitarian rationale for joining it.[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, though a government official participated in a regional workshop on the convention in Grenada in March 2020.
The Bahamas voted in favor of the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions in December 2021, which urged states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[3] The Bahamas has voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention every year since it was first introduced in 2015.
The Bahamas has also voted in favor of UNGA resolutions expressing outrage at the use of cluster munitions in Syria.[4] It has also voted in favor of Human Rights Council resolutions condemning use of cluster munitions in Syria.[5]
The Bahamas 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
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 CMC 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 the UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York, October 2016.
[3] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 76/47, 6 December 2021.
[4] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution 75/193, 16 December 2020.
[5] See, “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” Human Rights Council Resolution 43/28, 22 June 2020.