Five-Year Review: Non-signatory Vanuatu adopted the convention in 2008 and its executive Council of Ministers has considered the country’s accession to the convention, but the current status of the accession process is not known. It has not participated in any meetings of the convention. Vanuatu has confirmed it does not use, produce, stockpile, or transfer cluster munitions.

Policy

The Republic of Vanuatu has not yet acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Government officials have expressed support for the convention’s objectives, but the status of its accession process is not known. In October 2012, a government official said the Council of Ministers was considering Vanuatu’s accession to the convention.[1] In April 2011, the director-general of Vanuatu’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the Monitor that the Council was considering a policy paper on the convention.[2] In July 2011, a government representative informed the Monitor that relevant authorities were holding consultations on the convention.[3]

Vanuatu joined the Oslo Process in February 2008 and endorsed the Wellington Declaration in support of an instrument prohibiting cluster munitions. It joined in the consensus adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Dublin in May 2008, but did not attend the Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.

Vanuatu has not participated in any meetings of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, such as the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014.[4]

Vanuatu has voted in favor of recent 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.[5]

Vanuatu is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Vanuatu has stated that it “does not use, produce, stockpile or transfer cluster munitions.”[6]