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No consensus reached about cluster munitions

NGOs call on states to join Norwegian initiative for a new cluster munitions treaty

DanChurchAid believes that urgent steps need to be taken to address the humanitarian concern posed by cluster munitions to negotiate a new treaty outside the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

The Norwegian initiative was prompted by the failure of states parties to the CCW to launch negotiations on cluster munitions within the existing mechanism.

Cluster bombs in Lebanon

This summer, during the last days of the Lebanon war, Israel dropped an estimated one million cluster bomblets over southern Lebanon. Daily, people are killed by cluster bombs in Lebanon, according to Human Rights Watch .

Educating the public about the dangers posed by cluster munitions will not solve the problem:

• The use of the cluster munitions is the problem.

No consensus reached

At the 3rd Review Conference of the Convention of Conventional Weapons that ended this Friday in Geneva, no consensus was reached for a creation of a negotiating mandate for Cluster Munitions even though 30 countries led by Sweden and Ireland were urging for a negotiating mandate on cluster munitions saying that the cluster munitions ”pose a serious humanitarian hazard because they are for example inaccurate and unreliable”.

This proposal has been rejected by Australia, China, India, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States and thus a week agreement on continuation of consultations on Explosive Remnants of War with a particular focus on cluster munitions was agreed upon. We consider this a failure.

DanChurchAid encourages the Danish government to support the Norwegian initiative

DanChurchAid thus encourage the Danish government to adhere to its humanitarian policies and participate in the Norwegian initiative for to start a process on a new treaty to ban cluster munitions “that have unacceptable humanitarian consequences.”

Together with 179 other NGOs, DanChurchAid is a member of the Cluster Munition Coalition , CMC. The CMC commend commends all those states that have expressed a willingness to begin work on a new international law on cluster munitions. We also note that two thirds of those states that have expressed a willingness to negotiate a new instrument on cluster munitions are stockpilers of this weapon. This reflects the strong and growing commitment by the relevant states to address the problems posed by this inhuman weapon.