Tonga
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary
Non-signatory Tonga has never elaborated its position on joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Tonga has not participated in any meetings of the convention. In December 2021, Tonga voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention.
Tonga is not known to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
Policy
The Kingdom of Tonga has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Tonga has never commented on the humanitarian concerns raised by cluster munitions or elaborated its position on joining the convention.
Tonga attended one meeting of the Oslo Process, the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions in February 2008, but did not endorse the Wellington Declaration that supported the negotiation of a new treaty on the weapons. Tonga did not attend the subsequent Dublin negotiations in May 2008 or the convention’s Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.
Tonga has never participated in a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1] Yet it has attended regional workshops on the convention, such as one hosted in Auckland, New Zealand in February 2018, which issued a declaration affirming “the clear moral and humanitarian rationale for joining” the convention.[2]
In December 2021, Tonga voted in favor of the key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution urging states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[3] Tonga also voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention in 2020, but was absent from the vote in 2015–2019.
Tonga is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty or the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Tonga is not known to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
[1] Tonga attended regional meetings on explosive remnants of war (ERW) in the Pacific region, held in Koror, Palau in October 2012 and in Brisbane, Australia in June 2013. Email from Lorel Thompson, National Coordinator, Safe Ground, 30 March 2014.
[2] According to the declaration, during the meeting “some states not yet party to the Convention undertook to positively consider membership of it.” Auckland Declaration on Conventional Weapons Treaties, Pacific Conference on Conventional Weapons Treaties, Auckland, 12–14 February 2018.
[3] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 76/47, 6 December 2021.