Arms trade

Landmark treaty on cluster bombs signed without US

Article published on the 2008-12-03 Latest update 2008-12-03 14:31 TU

Making artificial limbs at a rehabilitation centre in Laos
(Photo: Véronique Gaymard)

More than 100 countries are signing a landmark treaty today banning the use of deadly cluster bombs which kill and maim long after being deployed. Signed in Oslo, Norway, at the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) the treaty which has been hailed as the biggest humanitarian treaty of the decade.

"The world is a safer place today," said Richard Moyes at the convention for the Cluster Munitions Coalition, which represents more than 300 NGOs.

Forty-five-year-old Laotian Ta was injured when he handled a cluster bomb
(Photo: Stanislas Fradelizi)

Cluster bombs, like landmines, are deadly but also cause casualities years after conflicts have ended, primarily claiming civilian lives. They are dropped from planes or fired via shells, missiles or rockets in order to be spread over a large area.

"They are very dangerous for civilians, because obviously they endure, they are very unstable," says Tom Portius, director of Human Rights Watch in London.

This treaty comes after 18 months of intense negotiation known as the Oslo Process. But Norway, which has been pivotal in the development of this treaty, has failed to involve major arms producers such as China, Russia and the United States.

The US believes that banning the devices will put its miltary personnel at risk and "although we share the humanitarian concerns of states signing the CCM, we will not be joining them," the US State Department commented.

Cluster bombs.
(Credit: Simon Convay - Cluster Munition Coalition)

Between 1964 and 1973, the US air force dropped 260 million cluster bombs on Laos, and more recently cluster munitions have been used in Iraq, Afghanistan and by Israel in Lebanon.

"There are still civilians who are dying resulting as a result of explosions in Laos from the Vietnam era," Portius told RFI.

Britain, Canada, France and Germany will all endorse the treaty, and it is hoped that, once Barack Obama moves into the White House in January, the US will ratify the agreement.

Obama did agree to ban cluster bombs in a motion in 2006, but it was rejected by the US Senate.