Five-Year Review: State Party Zambia was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010. It has expressed its intent to enact specific implementation legislation for the convention. Zambia has participated in all of the convention’s meetings and hosted the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka in September 2013, serving as the convention’s president until September 2014. Zambia has condemned new use of cluster munitions and elaborated its views on a number of important matters relating to the interpretation and implementation of the convention.

In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2011, Zambia confirmed it has never used, produced, or transferred cluster munitions and does not stockpile cluster munitions, including for training or research.

Policy

The Republic of Zambiasigned the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 12 August 2009. It was among the first 30 ratifications that triggered the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

Zambia has expressed its intent to enact specific implementation legislation for the conventionsince 2010. In 2013 and 2014, Zambia stated draft legislation was being prepared and would soon be submitted for parliamentary consideration.[1]

Zambia submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 21 January 2011. It had provided annual updated reports since then, but as of 24 July 2015, had not submitted its annual report that was due by 30 April 2015.[2] 

Zambia played an influential leadership role during the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, including by hosting an African regional conference in Livingstone in March–April 2008 that helped generate broad and united support from many African states for a comprehensive convention.[3]

Zambia plays an active leadership role in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It hosted the convention’s Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka on 9–13 September 2013 and served as president of the convention until September 2014.[4] Zambia served as co-coordinator on the General Status and Operation of the convention in 2012–2013, together with Costa Rica.

Zambia has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, most recently the Fifth Meeting of States Parties held in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014. It has attended all of the convention’s intersessional meetings held in Geneva since 2011.

Zambia has participated in a number of regional meetings on the convention and together with the ICRC hosted a regional seminar on the convention in Lusaka on 17–18 June 2015 for Southern African Development Community (SADC) states.[5] Zambia also attended a workshop on the convention in New York on 16 April 2015.[6]

At the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in September 2014, Zambia expressed sadness at the continued use of cluster munitions, which it condemned “in the strongest terms.”[7] At a meeting of the convention in June 2015, Zambia affirmed the need to strongly condemn the use of cluster munitions “wherever they have been used.”[8] In its capacity as President of the Fourth Meeting of States Parties, Zambia condemned the use of cluster munitions in South Sudan in February 2014.[9]

Interpretive issues

Zambia has elaborated its views on a number of important matters related to the interpretation and implementation of the convention. In May 2008, during the convention’s negotiations, Zambia expressed concern about the proposed article on “interoperability” (joint military operations with states not party) and stated that it understood that the provisions for interoperability in Article 21 did not provide a loophole for States Parties to allow the transit or indefinite stockpiling of cluster munitions in their territories.[10]

In April 2009, the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that Zambia does not believe that States Parties to the convention should “in any way assist the use [or] transfer of cluster bombs within or without their territories in the name of joint operations.”[11] In 2009, the director of the Zambia Mine Action Centre (ZMAC) stated that Zambia believed that the prohibition on assistance prohibits investment in the production of cluster munitions.[12]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Zambia has reported that it has never produced cluster munitions and does not stockpile cluster munitions, including for training or research.[13] Zambia has also stated that it has not transferred cluster munitions.[14]