Guinea

Cluster Munition Ban Policy

Last updated: 14 August 2022

Summary

State Party Guinea ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 21 October 2014. It last participated in a meeting of the convention in 2016. Guinea voted in favor of the key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting the convention in December 2021.

Guinea is not known to have ever used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but has imported them and may possess a stockpile. Guinea must provide an Article 7 transparency report for the convention to confirm whether it possesses cluster munition stocks. If it does, it is obligated to ensure their destruction as soon as possible, and no later than 1 April 2023.

Policy

The Republic of Guinea signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified it on 21 October 2014. The convention entered into force for the country on 1 April 2015.

Guinea has not indicated whether it will enact specific national implementation legislation for the convention.

As of August 2022, Guinea had not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the convention, which was originally due by 19 April 2015. Timely submission of this report is a legal obligation.

Guinea participated in the Oslo Process which created the convention, and attended the Dublin negotiations in May 2008, where it joined in the consensus adoption of the convention.[1]

Guinea last attended a meeting of the convention in September 2016.[2]

Guinea voted in favor of a UNGA resolution promoting universalization and full implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in December 2021.[3] It previously voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention in 2015–2018 and 2020.[4]

Guinea has not elaborated its views on certain important issues relating to the 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 (CCW).

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Guinea is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.

Guinea imported cluster munitions and may currently possess a stockpile. Moldova has reported that it transferred 860 9M27K cluster munition rockets, each containing 30 fragmentation submunitions, to Guinea in 2000, for use in its 220mm Uragan multi-barrel rocket launchers.[5]

Guinea must provide a transparency report for the convention to formally confirm if it possesses stocks, and if so, disclose information on the types and quantities to be destroyed. If Guinea does possess cluster munitions, it is obligated to ensure their destruction as soon as possible, and no later than 1 April 2023.

Guinea has not reported whether it plans 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 (HRW) and Landmine Action, Banning Cluster Munitions: Government Policy and Practice (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, May 2009), p. 86.

[2] Guinea participated in the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2010–2011 and 2016, and the First Review Conference in September 2015.

[3]Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 76/47, 6 December 2021.

[4] Guinea was absent from the vote on UNGA Resolution 74/62 on 12 December 2019.

[5] 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.