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Cluster Bomb Ban to Become Law – Without U.S.
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By Matthew Berger
Inter Press Service
Thursday, Feb 18, 2010
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The U.S. has historically been one main users of cluster munitions, but it – along with other key powers like China, India, Israel, Russia and Pakistan – has refused to sign on to the treaty. |
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Just over a year after it was opened for
signature, an international treaty banning cluster bombs received the
final two ratifications it needed to become international law Tuesday.
Burkina
Faso and Moldova ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions to much
praise from human rights and victim advocacy groups. The treaty will
become international law Aug. 1, when use, production and trade in
cluster munitions will be banned and deadlines for stockpile
destruction will be set.
States that have used cluster munitions in the past will also
be obligated to provide support for communities affected by the use of
the munitions and to assist in clearing contaminated land.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed to the
quick turnaround between the treaty's adoption and its ratification as
evidence of "the world's collective revulsion at the impact of these
terrible weapons."
The treaty process was started in February 2007 when 46 states
agreed to start drawing up a cluster munitions-banning treaty. The
eventual convention was available for ratification starting in December
2008 and has now, 15 months later, reached the threshold needed to
enter into force.
"The short time it took to reach this milestone shows that
governments have a strong desire never to see these terrible weapons
used again," said Steve Goose, arms division director at Human Rights
Watch and co-chair of the international Cluster Munition Coalition.
Cluster munitions explode in mid-air to release dozens – sometimes
hundreds – of smaller "bomblets" across large areas. Because the final
location of these scattered smaller bombs is difficult to control, they
can cause large numbers of civilian casualties.
Bomblets that fail to explode immediately may also lay
dormant, potentially acting as landmines and killing or maiming
civilians long after a conflict is ended.
Children are known to be particularly at risk from dud cluster
munitions since they are often attracted to the shiny objects and less
aware of their dangers.
"Cluster munitions are unreliable and inaccurate, said Ban,
adding that "they impair post-conflict recovery by making roads and
land inaccessible to farmers and aid workers."
The U.S. has historically been one main users of cluster
munitions, but it – along with other key powers like China, India,
Israel, Russia and Pakistan – has refused to sign on to the treaty.
The George W. Bush administration actively opposed the treaty, saying cluster munitions served an important military role.
It was hoped that the Barack Obama administration would shift
this position, and legislation to ban most cluster munitions use by the
U.S. military, the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act, was
introduced in Congress in less than a month after he took office.
But a year later, that legislation has stalled in committee
and it is unclear where Obama stands on the issue, though the president
did sign a law in March 2009 banning the export of all but a tiny
fraction of U.S. cluster munitions.
The most recent large-scale employment of cluster bombs was in
the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008, which Human Rights Watch has
called the first known use of the controversial munitions since the
Israeli attacks on Lebanon in 2006.
During the last 72 hours of the 2006 conflict, Israel reportedly fired
over 1,800 cluster rockets containing 1.2 million submunitions. For the
two months after the official cessation of hostilities, casualties were
still being recorded at the rate of three or four people killed or
maimed per day.
"Every signatory needs to ratify, and those who haven't signed
need to come on board to keep more civilian lives and limbs from being
needlessly lost," said Goose, pointing out that over half the world's
states have agreed to seek ratification.
"In light of this new international law, it is especially
important for former users of the weapon – such as the United States,
Russia and Israel – to re-examine their positions, which put
questionable claims of military necessity above the well-documented
humanitarian damage cluster munitions cause," he said.
"Cluster munitions are already stigmatised to the point that
no nation should ever use them again, even those who have not yet
joined the Convention," he added.
Even with over half the world's countries onboard, without the
U.S.'s involvement, the treaty covers less than half of the world's
cluster munitions.
"If the U.S. moved in it would ban more than half of the
cluster munitions used in the world," Lora Lumpe, legislative
representative at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, which
houses the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines, told IPS following the
introduction of the legislation a year ago.
Furthermore, she explained, by signing on the U.S. could put
pressure on the other large-scale users of cluster bombs which have
also not signed onto the treaty, such as Russia and China.
"I'm confident that if there was a policy review that included
the full range of U.S. interests at stake, they would see that there is
no need to hold on to the threat of these munitions that most of the
rest of the world has banned," Lumpe told IPS at the time.
"The cluster munitions treaty is the most important
disarmament treaty to be developed since the landmine ban entered into
force more than ten years ago," said Ed Kenny, Handicap International's
senior programme officer for advocacy, referring to the 1997 treaty
banning landmines on which the cluster munitions treaty was modeled.
Following negotiations involving governments that were in
support of a ban as well as the International Committee of the Red
Cross and the U.N., the convention was signed onto by 107 states in
Dublin on May 30, 2008.
The 30 countries amongst these who have ratified the treaty
include both those where cluster munitions have been used and those who
have stockpiles of the munitions – as well as one country, Spain, that
has already completed the destruction of its stockpiles.
The next step following the treaty's becoming international
law in August will be a meeting of the states who have ratified it in
Laos in late 2010.
Inter Press Service
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