Tonga
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Summary
Non-signatory Tonga has never elaborated its position on joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Tonga has not participated in any meetings of the convention. In December 2021, Tonga voted in favor of a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention.
Tonga is not known to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
Policy
The Kingdom of Tonga has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Tonga has never commented on the humanitarian concerns raised by cluster munitions or elaborated its position on joining the convention.
Tonga attended one meeting of the Oslo Process, the Wellington Conference on Cluster Munitions in February 2008, but did not endorse the Wellington Declaration that supported the negotiation of a new treaty on the weapons. Tonga did not attend the subsequent Dublin negotiations in May 2008 or the convention’s Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008.
Tonga has never participated in a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1] Yet it has attended regional workshops on the convention, such as one hosted in Auckland, New Zealand in February 2018, which issued a declaration affirming “the clear moral and humanitarian rationale for joining” the convention.[2]
In December 2021, Tonga voted in favor of the key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution urging states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[3] Tonga also voted in favor of the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention in 2020, but was absent from the vote in 2015–2019.
Tonga is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty or the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Tonga is not known to have ever used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions.
[1] Tonga attended regional meetings on explosive remnants of war (ERW) in the Pacific region, held in Koror, Palau in October 2012 and in Brisbane, Australia in June 2013. Email from Lorel Thompson, National Coordinator, Safe Ground, 30 March 2014.
[2] According to the declaration, during the meeting “some states not yet party to the Convention undertook to positively consider membership of it.” Auckland Declaration on Conventional Weapons Treaties, Pacific Conference on Conventional Weapons Treaties, Auckland, 12–14 February 2018.
[3] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 76/47, 6 December 2021.
Mine Ban Policy
Policy
The Kingdom of Tonga has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.
Tonga’s current views on Mine Ban Treaty accession are not known. On 5 December 2018, Tonga voted in favor of UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 73/61 calling for universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty, as it has done in previous years.[1]
Previously, in October 2009, Tonga’s permanent representative to the UN in New York, Ambassador Sonatane Tu’akinamolahi Taumoepeau Tupou, told the ICBL that the question of Mine Ban Treaty accession had been reviewed by several government departments and must now receive final approval from the cabinet and then the privy council.[2] In 2007, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said Tonga lacked the internal resources needed to complete the necessary accession procedures.[3]
Tonga participated in the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties in 2012 as an observer. It also participated in a regional workshop on the Mine Ban Treaty in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in May 2007.
Tonga is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, nor is it party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpile
Tonga has stated that it has never produced, transferred, or stockpiled antipersonnel mines.[4]
[1] “Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction,” UNGA Resolution 73/61, 5 December 2018.
[2] ICBL meeting with Amb. Sonatane Tu’akinamolahi Taumoepeau Tupou, Permanent Mission of Tonga to the UN, New York, 14 October 2009. See ICBL, “Report on CMC/ICBL Lobby Meetings: UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, New York,” 12–23 October 2009.
[3] Remarks of Tonga, Regional Workshop Towards a Mine-Free Pacific, Port Vila, Vanuatu, 3 May 2007. Notes by the Monitor.
[4] Fax from Falekava Kupu, on behalf of the Acting Chief Secretary and Secretary for the Cabinet, Prime Minister’s Office, 14 August 2001.