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Country Reports
Cook Islands

Cook Islands

The Cook Islands signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo on 3 December 2008. The status of the ratification process is not known. The Cook Islands is not believed to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

The Cook Islands joined the Oslo Process in February 2008, when it participated in the Wellington conference and endorsed the Wellington Declaration, indicating its intention to participate in the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008. In a statement to the meeting, the Cook Islands said it viewed the Oslo Process as an “opportunity to take effective action [and] we need to act now if further casualties are to be avoided.”[1]

At the Dublin negotiations, the Cook Islands High Commissioner to Australia and New Zealand, Ambassador Tepure Tapaitau, actively supported efforts to create a strong treaty text. From the outset, the Cook Islands called for a convention without any exceptions because, “To allow exceptions would be to allow countries to make excuses for the continued use of cluster munitions.”[2]

After Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilkie Rasmussen signed the convention, he told campaigners that he would use his position as president of the Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) Parliamentary Assembly to encourage countries in these regions to sign.[3]

The Cook Islands is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.


[1] Statement of Cook Islands, Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions, 19 February 2008. Notes by CMC.

[2] Summary Record of the Plenary, Second Session: 19 May 2008, Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions, CCM/SR/2, 18 June 2008.

[3] Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference, Oslo, 3 December 2008. Notes by the Aotearoa New Zealand Cluster Munition Coalition.