Summary: State Party Rwanda ratified the convention on 25 August 2015. It participated in a meeting of the convention in 2013. Rwanda states that it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

The Republic of Rwanda signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 25 August 2015. The convention entered into force for Rwanda on 1 February 2016.

Rwanda has not indicated if it intends to enact implementing legislation for the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

As of 20 June 2017, Rwanda has not submitted its initial Article 7 transparency measures report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was originally due by 31 July 2016.

Rwanda attended one regional meeting of the Oslo Process (Kampala, Uganda, in September 2008) that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions before it signed the convention in Oslo in December 2008.[1]

Rwanda’s Council of Ministers approved ratification of the convention on 11 November 2009, and both houses of parliament adopted ratification legislation (Law 13/2011) on 30 May 2011.[2] A ratification decree signed by President Paul Kagame, published in the country’s Official Gazette on 29 December 2014, marked the completion of the domestic ratification process.[3] Rwanda deposited its instrument of ratification with the UN in New York on 25 August 2015, becoming the 94^th State Party.[4]

Rwanda has participated in one meeting of the convention, the Third Meeting of the States Parties in Oslo, Norway, in September 2012. It was invited to, but did not attend the Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2016. Rwanda did not participate in the convention’s intersessional meetings held in Geneva in 2011–2015.

In December 2016, Rwanda was absent from the vote in support of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the treaty banning cluster munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[5] It however voted in favor of a similar UNGA resolution on the convention in December 2015.[6]

During its term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC), Rwanda expressed concern in October 2014 at the “reported use of cluster munitions” in Ukraine and urged “a full, thorough and independent investigation.”[7] Rwanda voted for a 2014 UNSC resolution that expressed concern at the “indiscriminate” use of cluster munitions in South Sudan.[8] Rwanda has voted in favor of Human Rights Council resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in March 2017.[9]

Rwanda has not elaborated its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention, such as the prohibition on transit, the prohibition on assistance during joint military operations with states not party that may use cluster munitions, the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions, the prohibition on investment in production of cluster munitions, and the need for retention of cluster munitions for training and development purposes.

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Rwanda stated in 2008 that it does not use, produce, transfer, or stockpile cluster munitions.[10]