The 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 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.

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.

On 30 May 2008, 107 governments participating in a Dublin Diplomatic Conference formally adopted the text of a new Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). Signed in Oslo on 3-4 December 2008, it will enter into force six months after being ratified by a minimum of 30 governments. This culminates what has become known as the Oslo Process, a procedure similar to the Ottawa Process which resulted in the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. The new convention completely bans production of cluster munitions, and requires destruction of cluster munitions stockpiles that do not meet criteria designed to avoid explosive remnants of war, to significantly reduce the possibility of indiscriminate effects. It contains provisions on victim assistance, clearance, transparency and international cooperation. Stipulations on humanitarian assistance for victims and affected communities, and obligation of affected countries and donors to clear contaminated land, go beyond what was agreed in the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. It builds upon the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that came into force on 3 May 2008. This paper describes the technical aspects of cluster munitions and the humanitarian impact resulting from their use. It focuses on Africa in particular and describes the continent's participation in the Oslo Process. In its conclusion, the paper provides a critical assessment of Africa's role in what has been called a new chapter in international arms control and disarmament efforts.