Five-Year Review: State Party Samoa ratified the convention on 28 April 2010 after enacting legislation to implement the convention’s provisions, including a prohibition on investments in the development or production of cluster munitions. It attended one of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties in 2012. Samoa provided its initial transparency report for the convention in 2012 and has confirmed it “has never used, produced, stockpiled or transferred cluster munitions.”

Policy

The Independent State of Samoa signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008, ratified on 28 April 2010, and the convention entered into force for Samoa on 1 October 2010.

The Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act 2012, which came into effect on 27 April 2012, serves as Samoa’s national implementation legislation for the convention.[1]

Samoa provided its initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 transparency report on 7 September 2012.[2] As of 14 May 2015, it had not provided any of the annual updated reports due by 30 April each year.

Samoa joined the Oslo Process in February 2008 and supported the most comprehensive ban possible during the Dublin negotiations.[3] Samoa attended the Convention on Cluster Munitions Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.

Samoa has attended one of the convention’s Meetings of States Parties, the Third Meeting of States Parties held in Oslo, Norway in September 2012, where it announced the enactment of its national implementing legislation.[4] It has not participated in any meetings of the convention held since.

Samoa has voted in favor of 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]

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

Interpretive issues

Samoa’s implementing legislation prohibits assistance with prohibited activities. The law specifically makes it an offense for members of Samoa’s police forces to expressly request the use of cluster munitions while engaged in operations, exercises, or other military activities with the armed forces of a state not party to the convention, when the choice of munitions used is within the exclusive control of the police.[6] The act applies extraterritorially to Samoan citizens or residents, members of the police, and corporations.

The Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act 2012 makes it an offense to invest in cluster munitions development or production. According to Part II, Section 6(1) (f), the offense pertains to persons who “directly or indirectly invest funds with the intention that the funds be used, or knowing that they are to be used, in the development and production of cluster munitions.”

Samoa has not yet indicated if it agrees with the view of the CMC that the transit of cluster munitions is prohibited by the convention.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Samoa has reported that it has no stockpiled cluster munitions, including for training purposes.[7] It has reported that that it “has never had production facilities” for cluster munitions.[8]

Samoa stated in September 2012 that it “has never used, produced, stockpiled or transferred cluster munitions.”[9]