Summary: State Party Seychelles ratified the convention on 20 May 2010, less than a month after signing it. Seychelles has expressed its intent to enact national implementation legislation for the convention. It participated in a meeting of the convention in 2013. In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in 2013, Seychelles confirmed it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.

Policy

The Republic of Seychelles signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 13 April 2010, ratified on 20 May 2010, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 November 2010.[1]

After conducting a legislative review, Seychelles announced in 2013 that it intended to amend existing implementation law for the Mine Ban Treaty to apply its provisions of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2] As of May 2016, it is not known if any progress has been made on this proposed implementing legislation for the convention.

Seychelles submitted an initial Article 7 transparency report for the convention on 30 April 2013.[3] As of 30 May 2016, it had not provided any of the updated annual reports due by 30 April each year.

Seychelles participated in the Oslo Process that created the convention and advocated for a humanitarian rather than technical approach to tackling cluster munitions.[4]

Seychelles has not participated in any Meetings of States Parties of the convention and did not attend the First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in September 2015. Seychelles attended the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva once, in 2013, and it had participated in regional workshops on the convention, most recently in Lomé, Togo in May 2013.

Seychelles has not elaborated its views on certain important issues related to interpretation and implementation of the convention, including 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, and the prohibition on investment in cluster munition production.

Seychelles was absent from the 7 December 2015 vote on the first UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[5]

Seychelles has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2014.[6]

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

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

In 2013, Seychelles stated that it had never used, produced, imported, stockpiled, or transferred cluster munitions, “nor does it have any intention to do so.”[7] It has reported that it has no cluster munitions, including for training or research purposes.[8]