Five-Year Review: State Party Ghana ratified the convention on 3 February 2011 and has expressed its intent to enact national implementing legislation to enforce the convention’s provisions. Ghana has attended every Meeting of States Parties of the convention and served as the convention’s co-coordinator on universalization in 2013–2014. Ghana has expressed its concern at new use of cluster munitions and elaborated its views on important matters relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention.

In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2011, Ghana confirmed it never used, produced, acquired, or stockpiled cluster munitions and is not retaining any for research or training.

Policy

The Republic of Ghana signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 3 February 2011, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 August 2011.

Ghana has expressed its intent to enact national implementing legislation for the convention, but the status of the process was not known as of July 2015. Previously, in April 2013, Ghana stated that draft legislation prepared by the Attorney General’s department would be adopted soon.[1] In 2013 and 2012, Ghana reported that draft legislation has been prepared.[2]

Ghana submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions in August 2011 and provided annual updated reports in 2012, 2013, and 2014.[3] As of 14 July 2015, Ghana had not submitted its annual updated report for calendar year 2014.

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

Ghana has attended every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014. Ghana has participated in all of convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, except for those held in June 2015.

Ghana actively engages in the work of the convention. It has served as co-coordinator on universalization in 2013–2014 together with Norway. Ghana hosted a regional conference on universalization of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Accra on 28–29 May 2012, which 34 African states attended, including non-signatories Eritrea, Mauritius, and Zimbabwe.[5] Ghana assisted Togo in holding a regional seminar on the convention in Lomé in May 2013, where participating states established an African Working Committee on universalization of the ban convention spearheaded by Ghana, Togo, and Zambia.[6]

In April 2013, Ghana expressed its “deep concern” at reports of new cluster munition use in Syria.[7] Ghana voted in favor of two Human Rights Council resolutions in 2015 condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently on 2 July.[8]

Ghana is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Interpretive issues

During the Oslo Process, Ghana elaborated its views on several important matters relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention. In September 2008, the Minister of State at the Ministry for the Interior, Nana Obiri Boahen, expressed Ghana’s view that States Parties must not intentionally assist other states in using cluster munitions and in other acts prohibited by the convention, should not allow other states to transport cluster munitions through their territory, should remove stockpiles of foreign cluster munitions from their territory, and should retain only the minimum number of cluster munitions required for training purposes, which could be in the hundreds or thousands but not the tens of thousands.[9]

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

In its initial Article 7 report provided in August 2011, Ghana declared it “has never produced cluster munitions” and stated that “Ghana’s peace support operations by the Ghana Armed Forces takes place under the mandate of the UN and those operations does not [sic] sanction the use of Cluster Munitions.”[10]

Ghana also declared that it “does not stockpile cluster munitions and does not intend to acquire any in the future for training and research purposes.”[11]