'EACH STATE party undertakes never under any circumstances to: use cluster munitions; develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions; assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a state party under this convention."
There is a decisive and emphatic ring to Article 1 of the Convention on Cluster Weapons, signed yesterday in Oslo by the first batch of states to give it legal validity. This is a proud moment for Ireland and the other states which have campaigned for many years for an outright prohibition. Defined as "a conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms", they are fired from aircraft, artillery weapons and tanks to spread out insidiously over a battlefield. Long after the military conflict is over they remain to kill or injure civilians, often women and children.
Fifteen states have used cluster weapons, 34 have produced them and at least 24 have had them used on their territories. Billions of submunitions are stockpiled by some 76 countries. The most notorious examples were in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam where tens of thousands of people have been killed since they were extensively deployed by the United States in the Vietnam war. More recently they have been used in Chechnya by the Russians, in Western Sahara by Morocco, in Afghanistan and Iraq by the British and the US, in ex-Yugoslavia by Serbia, and in southern Lebanon by Israel.
Since the outlawing of anti-personnel mines in 1997 campaigners have concentrated on banning these related weapons. They have built on the experience gained in that effort by creating a distinctive coalition of active and sympathetic states and a wide variety of 250 non-governmental organisations brought together in the Cluster Munition Coalition under the auspices of the International Red Cross and the United Nations. Ireland, along with Norway, Austria, the Holy See, New Zealand, Mexico and Peru formed a core group of committed states which gathered a wider set of sympathisers together. Once they gained critical mass they managed to complete negotiations on this text in one year, culminating in last year's final session in Dublin.
It is expected that upwards of 110 countries will now sign the convention, committing themselves to the outright ban set out in Article 1. That would leave 82 states refusing or delaying signature. Most prominent among them are the US, Russia, China, the UK, India and Pakistan, which say cluster munitions still have military validity even though they are willing to refine the technology involved or scale down their production and stockpiling. It is hoped to shame and stigmatise any continuing usage in coming years.
The convention is thus a very good but admittedly imperfect start to banning cluster bombs. It breaks new ground in its provisions for victim assistance, clearance and destruction, transparency, compliance and settlement of disputes. Above all it shows that a determined and focused international campaign can go this far.