Convention On Cluster Munitions

This is a commentary on the legislation around the use of cluster munitions in warfare.--

The Convention on Cluster Munitions is an international treaty that forbids the use, transfer, production, and accumulation of cluster bombs, a type of explosive weapon which scatters submunition over an area. In addition, it establishes a framework to sustain victim assistance, clearance of contaminated sites, risk reduction education, and stockpile demolition. This convention was adopted on 30 May 2008 in Dublin and entered into force on 1 August 2010.

This book offers a comprehensive argument for why pre-existing international law on cluster munitions was inadequate to deal with the full scope of humanitarian consequences associated with their use. The book undertakes an interdisciplinary legal analysis of restraints and prohibitions on the use of cluster munitions under international humanitarian law, human rights law, and international criminal law, as well as in relation to the recently adopted Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). The book goes on to offer an in-depth substantive and procedural analysis of the negotiations which led to the 2008 CCM, in part based on the author’s experiences as an adviser to Cluster Munitions Coalition-Austria. Cluster Munitions and International Law is essential reading for practitioners and scholars of International Law, including International Humanitarian, Human Rights, International Criminal or Disarmament Law and anyone interested in legal and humanitarian perspectives on cluster munitions legislation and policy. It is unique in bringing a practitioner’s perspective to a scholarly work.

This book analyses the events leading up to the cluster munitions ban, the provisions of the treaty, as well as assesses the progress made in the years since towards a world without the presence of cluster munitions. Cluster bombs are weapons that are small but deadly. They often look like small metal canisters, and some of them are painted, giving them the innocuous appearance of a soda can. The unexploded submunitions that are scattered on the ground, in effect, act as landmines, that can kill or severely injure anyone who comes across them, sometimes even years and decades later. It has been reported that 98% of all casualties of cluster munitions are civilians, of which one-third are children. Cluster munitions have been used in numerous conflicts since the Second World War, and it has been estimated that at least 1 billion submunitions were stockpiled globally. The campaign to ban cluster munitions faced a monumental and nearly impossible task – to convince governments to agree to stop using a valuable weapon that they stockpiled by the hundreds of thousands, in a political climate where the interests of national security and state sovereignty outweighed humanitarian concerns in almost every instance. However, where many international agreements failed and diplomatic processes stalled, the campaign to ban cluster munitions succeeded. Despite strong opposition from many countries, 107 countries met in Dublin in May 2008 to negotiate and adopt a treaty prohibiting the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions. The outcome of the Oslo Process was a ray of hope among the usual cynicism and disenchantment of similar international processes. This book explores this question: how was this accomplished, and are there any wider lessons to be learned from it?

This book is the culmination of a decade of research by Human Rights Watch. It details the humanitarian toll of cluster munitions, analyzes the international process that resulted in the treaty successfully banning them, and presents the steps that nations that have signed the convention should take to fulfill its promise. Meeting the Challenge draws on Human Rights Watch's field investigations to document the burdens cluster munitions impose on civilians and on its firsthand experience as an active participant in developing the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.