The Maldives ratified the UN Arms Trade Treaty, the UN Cluster Munitions Convention and the Third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on a communications procedure at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The Instruments of Ratification for the three conventions were submitted to the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs by His Excellency Abdulla Shahid, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Maldives, during a ceremony held in the United Nations Headquarters.
The United Nations Cluster Munitions Convention, which was approved by the People’s Majlis on 3 September 2019, is an international legal instrument that prohibits the use, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs, a category of weapon which scatters submunitions over a large area, and is a threat to innocent civilians, especially women and children.
The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which was approved by the People’s Majlis on 4 September 2019, is a multilateral treaty that regulates international trade in conventional weapons and is designed to stop the illicit flow of arms in the world.
The Third Optional Protocol to the CRC, which the Maldives initially signed in February 2012 but never ratified, is an international instrument which allows individual children to submit complaints about specific violations of their human rights and fundamental freedoms under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its optional protocols. The submission of the Instrument of Ratification for this specific protocol means that the Maldives has now ratified all three optional protocols under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Third Optional Protocol was passed by the People’s Majlis on 4 September 2019.
