- Title: VARIOUS/FILE: Global treaty banning cluster weapons about to come into force
- Date: 1st August 2010
- Summary: UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION, SOUTHERN LEBANON (FILE - SEPTEMBER 2006) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CHINESE U.N. TROOPS DEMINING CONTROLLED EXPLOSION
- Embargoed: 16th August 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVA6OKDSPYZAVGHSWLV2G6OZQYOV
- Story Text: A global treaty banning cluster munitions goes into force on (Sunday) August 1. The Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of a weapon which is blamed for maiming and killing tens of thousands of civilians.
Cluster bombs are dropped from planes or fired by mortars. The canisters open in mid-air releasing bomblets that scatter over a wide area. Most explode immediately, but those that fail to detonate on impact can claim victims many years after the end of the conflict.
Thomas Nash from the Cluster Munition Coalition, a network of 200 civil society organisations, hailed the ban.
"This is the most significant piece of international humanitarian law to enter into force since the land mine ban ten years ago. From this moment on, countries have a legal obligation to assist the victims."
The treaty requires signatories to destroy stockpiled cluster munitions within eight years, clear contaminated areas within 10 years and help affected communities and survivors More than two dozen countries have been affected by cluster bombs and activists say three out of five casualties occur during day-to-day activities. Many victims are children. Some are killed when they mistake the bomblets for playthings. The United Nations estimates almost half of casualties are from Laos.
Between 1964 and 1973, at the height of Vietnam War, the U.S. military dropped more than 2 million tons of explosive ordnance, including an estimated 260 million cluster munitions, mainly to disrupt enemy supply lines that passed through Laos.
It is thought that around 30 percent of bomblets failed to explode on impact, and over two-thirds of the country is still contaminated. Experts say they kill or injure about 300 people a year.
"The clock is now ticking for the deadlines to clear land within ten years and to destroy stockpiles within eight years," Nash said.
The Convention on Cluster Bombs was adopted in May 2008 and ratified by 37 states including Britain, France, Germany and Japan, which all have significant stocks.
But the United States -- the world's largest producer with the biggest stockpile of 800 million submunitions -- has shunned the treaty, although it says it will ban the weapon from 2018.
China and Russia have also stayed away and don't disclose their stocks.
However, campaigners like Steve Goose from Human Rights Watch say support for the convention will help to stigmatise the use of the weapons even in countries who have not yet signed it.
"We're convinced that this convention will have a big impact, even on those states that have not yet joined. There are some big powers out there who've not jet joined up to the convention - the US, Russia and Israel - states that have used the weapon extensively in the past. We think that they are going to feel the power of this new convention. We think that the convention is stigmatising the weapon all around the world and that states will be reluctant to ever use it again," Goose said.
Activists and aid agencies hailed the speed with which countries had signed up to the convention, which only opened for signature in December 2008.
On Sunday (August 1) campaigners, UN agencies, governments and international organisations will celebrate the day the convention becomes binding international law. But the Cluster Munition Coalition also said they needed to persuade more states to sign. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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