Summary: State Party Lesotho ratified the convention on 28 May 2010 and is in the process of adopting implementing legislation. Lesotho has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention as well as the First Review Conference in September 2015. It voted in favor of a UN resolution on the convention in December 2015. In its initial transparency report provided in 2011, Lesotho confirmed it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions and has not retained any for research or training.

Policy

The Kingdom of Lesotho signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 28 May 2010, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 November 2010.

Lesotho informed States Parties in September 2015 that it “is in the process of enacting applicable domestic legislation with a view to fully implementing the Convention.”[1] Since 2012, it has provided updates on the status of its process to prepare draft implementing legislation for the convention.[2]

Lesotho submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 29 August 2011, but, as of 26 June 2016, had not provided any of the annual updated reports due by 30 April each year.[3]

Lesotho participated extensively in the Oslo Process that created the convention and supported a comprehensive ban without exceptions.[4]

Lesotho participated in the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. In an address to the high-level segment of the meeting Lesotho said it, “calls upon those that have not yet done so to heed the global humanitarian call and plea, not only to ratify the Convention, but also implement the tenets and dictates of the Convention.”[5]

Lesotho has attended every Meeting of States Parties of the convention as well as intersessional meetings in Geneva in 2011 and 2013. It has also participated in regional meetings on cluster munitions, most recently in Lusaka, Zambia in June 2015.

On 7 December 2015, Lesotho voted in favor of a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[6]

Lesotho has condemned new use of cluster munitions and called for allegations of use to be “fully investigated.”[7]

Lesotho is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Lesotho has stated that it has never used or produced cluster munitions and does not possess a stockpile of the weapons.[8]

The Kingdom of Lesotho signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified it on 2 December 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 June 1999. Lesotho believes that existing legislation is sufficient to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically. 

Lesotho’s most recent attendance at a meeting of the treaty was at the Tenth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in November-December 2010. Lesotho did not attend the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014 nor subsequent Meetings of States Parties. Lesotho last submitted a Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 transparency report in 2011, where it indicated that all information remained unchanged from previous reports. On 5 December 2018, Lesotho voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolution 73/61 promoting universalization and implementation of the convention, as it has done in previous years. 

Lesotho is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war, but not its Amended Protocol II on landmines. Lesotho is party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. 

Lesotho has never used, produced, imported, exported, or stockpiled antipersonnel mines, including for training purposes.