Timor Leste
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Five-Year Review: Non-signatory Timor-Leste adopted the convention in 2008 and officials expressed support for its provisions, but stated that resource constraints and other priorities were preventing the government from initiating the accession process. Timor-Leste last participated in a meeting of the convention in 2011. It is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
Policy
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Resource constraints appear to have hindered its progress towards joining the convention. The government is not believed to have started the internal process to consider accession of the convention. In April 2012, a representative from Timor-Leste’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York said there was support for joining the convention but limited human resources, other treaty commitments, and the consolidation of state-building efforts have prevented it from initiating the accession process.[1] In 2010 and 2011, other government officials cited these same reasons for Timor-Leste’s lack of accession to the convention.[2]
Timor-Leste participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and joined in the consensus adoption of the convention text in Dublin on 30 May 2008, but did not sign the convention at the Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.
Timor-Leste attended a regional conference on cluster munitions in Bali, Indonesia in November 2009. It participated as an observer in the convention’s First Meeting of States Parties in Vientiane, Lao PDR in November 2010 and Second Meeting of States Parties in Beirut in September 2011, but did not make any statements. Timor-Leste has not attended any meetings of the convention since 2011.
Timor-Leste has voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, including Resolution 69/189 on 18 December 2014, which expressed “outrage” at the continued use.[3]
Timor-Leste is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Timor-Leste is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
[1] Email from Kavita Desai, Advisor, Permanent Mission of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste to the UN in New York, 27 April 2012.
[2] Email from Tiago A. Sarmento, Legal Advisor, Ministry of Defense and Security, 10 April 2011; and email from Charles Scheiner, Researcher, La’o Hamutuk (Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis), 20 April 2010.
[3] “Situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic,” UNGA Resolution A/RES/69/189, 18 December 2014. Timor-Leste voted in favor of a similar resolution on 18 December 2013.