14 September 2013

Saint Kitts and Nevis joins global cluster bomb ban

Mr Michael Penny, the government delegate for Saint Kitts and Nevis, with CMC Campaign Manager Amy Little, at the Fourth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lusaka, Zambia (c) Mary Wareham, HRWSaint Kitts and Nevis has become the latest country to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions, after depositing its instrument of accession on 13 September – the final day of the week long Fourth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention in Lusaka, Zambia.This latest accession takes the total number of countries onboard this lifesaving humanitarian treaty to 113 and Saint Kitts and Nevis will become the 84th State Party to the ban when its accession enters into force on 1 March 2014.Saint Kitts and Nevis becomes the fifth Caribbean country to become a State Party to the cluster bomb ban, joining Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Haiti and Jamaica have signed, but not yet ratified the Treaty. Folade Mutota, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) representative in the region is working to encourage other governments to join the Convention.Saint Kitts and Nevis participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention, and has been present at the Fourth Meeting of States Parties hosted by Zambia. At the Lusaka meeting this week the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Zambia, in his capacity as President of the Convention in the coming year, has committed to championing universalization of the Convention to ensure more countries join this life saving ban.Saint Kitts and Nevis is not known to have used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.