If this blog was a cluster bomb, you'd be dead

The Vienna Conference on Cluster Munitions, the latest step in the Oslo Process, kicked off today with a parliamentary forum in the morning and an NGO forum in the afternoon; both of which sought to set the bar high for the intergovernmental discussions that will take place over the remainder of the week.

Over 130 States have registered for the conference, almost double the number that participated in the last global meeting of the Oslo Process in Lima in May. The momentum that this process has gained in quite a short period of time is truly remarkable and lends credence to the claim made earlier today that the Oslo Process is now "unstoppable;" that it is no longer a question of whether it will succeed in negotiating a new treaty on cluster munitions, but rather how strong that treaty will be.

It is clear from today's discussions that NGOs want a very strong treaty indeed. The Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) is no longer talking about banning cluster munitions "that cause unacceptable harm to civilians," the formulation that lies at the centre of the Oslo Declaration. The talk now among NGOs is just about banning cluster munitions, pure and simple, since, the CMC argues, all cluster munitions cause unacceptable harm. Any government wishing to argue otherwise will by asked (perhaps too polite a word) by NGOs to back up their arguments with credible evidence.

The cause of a comprehensive ban was boosted this afternoon by an announcement by the Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs, Ursula Plassnik, that the Austrian parliament will promulgate a new law on Thursday this week banning all cluster munitions.

NGOs fear that most governments will not wish to follow Austria's example and will instead insist on excluding certain types of cluster munitions from the scope of the treaty being negotiated. The Vienna discussion text certainly leaves open this possibility. Article 2, which defines what a cluster munition is, contains three as yet blank place-holders that seem designed to contain descriptions of cluster munitions that would not be banned by the treaty.

It is likely that some States will push to exclude from the scope of the treaty cluster munitions that (manufacturers claim to) have low failure-rates, that are equipped with self-destruct mechanisms, that engage targets through the use of sensors, or that contain small numbers of sub-munitions. Today, NGOs made it quite clear that they find such exceptions to be unacceptable and, for good measure, added that they would also not accept a transition period to allow cluster munitions to be phased out nor allowances for joint operations with States that continued to use cluster munitions.

Fighting words aside, this afternoon's meeting did a fine job of bringing the voices of victims of cluster munitions to the forefront of the debate. Whether it was the impassioned plea of young Soraj Ghulam Habib from Afghanistan, who lost a cousin and both of his legs to a cluster bomb, or Branislav Kapetanovic's barely disguised rage not so much at his own injuries but at the indescribable carnage he saw cluster munitions wreak in Serbia, everyone who participated in today's meeting was reminded again and again that the goal of the Oslo Process is to protect civilians and assist victims.

It was not all harmony and meetings of minds however. A panel on "cluster munitions and the military" made up of serving and former military officers posed some pointed questions on the military utility of cluster munitions and on military alternatives to them. In the process, it highlighted some contentious issues that will no doubt continue to be discussed over the coming days.

The discussions that will take place over the next three days among the more than 130 registered governments will undoubtedly attempt to lower the bar set today by NGOs in the Cluster Munition Coalition. The biggest immediate challenge, however, would seem to be finding a room large enough to fit all participants in the Oslo Process. As of tomorrow morning, about 500 representatives of governments, NGOs and international organisations will begin to engage with one another in earnest.

Things are just getting interesting so stay tuned and feel free to add your voice to the debate by using the comment function below.

Patrick Mc Carthy


Photo: Wanda Munoz, Head of Victim Assistance, Handicap International (photo by the author)

Announcement: New Oslo Process resource website

There is a new website specifically dedicated to documents and other resources about the Oslo Process to address the humanitarian effects of cluster munitions. You can find it at:

http://www.clusterprocess.org

The idea behind the website is to act as a gateway for information about the cluster munition humanitarian process for participants and interested actors. It's meant to be fact-oriented, up-to-date, and easy to access and navigate even for slower internet connections - eschewing photos, animations and other bandwidth-heavy attributes.

On this site we've gathered two main categories of information. The first category concerns information produced for the Oslo Process such as the Oslo Declaration, the Lima Discussion Text and a calendar of events.

The cluster process website also contains broader information on the cluster problem and efforts to tackle it, with links to other meetings, publications, organisations and initiatives of interest - including Disarmament Insight.

The website is a work in progress, but will be updated and adjusted continuously. It's sponsored by the states hosting conferences in the Oslo Process so as to facilitate the need for access to documents and general information on its work.

I hope you find the site useful.


This is a guest blog by Christian Ruge, a consultant to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and technical editor of the Oslo Process website.

Cluster munitions: "I feel a disturbance in the Force ... "

This week, experts from States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) - sometimes known as the Inhumane Weapons Convention - will meet in Geneva.

The Group of Government Experts, or GGE as it's usually known, was scheduled last November, at the CCW's Review Conference. That meeting decided:

"To convene, as a matter of urgency, an intersessional meeting of governmental experts:

To consider further the application and implementation of existing international humanitarian law to specific munitions that may cause explosive remnants of war, with particular focus on cluster munitions, including the factors affecting their reliability and their technical and design characteristics, with a view to minimizing the humanitarian impact of these munitions."

This may all sound a bit humdrum. But while it won't make any decisions (that's the job of a one-week Meeting of States Parties in November), this week's GGE meeting will be interesting for several reasons. For instance:

- The GGE comes less than a month after an international conference in Lima, Peru, as part of the so-called "Oslo Process" toward a treaty to prohibit cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians (see previous blogs on this site reporting on that meeting) and a Meeting of Experts organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Montreux in April;

- There is a new proposal from the European Union for a negotiating mandate on cluster munitions in the CCW, which the GGE meeting will no doubt discuss (see reference below);

- As such, all eyes are on the reactions of some of the big cluster munition user states like the United States, Russia and China.

Until now, these countries haven't been keen to negotiate new legal rules on cluster munitions in the CCW. But they can't have been blind to international political momentum that's developed since a Norwegian-sponsored conference in Oslo in February that committed 46 countries to negotiation of a treaty in the CCW or outside it - a group that continues to grow in number.

It's unlikely that many states previously opposed to a negotiating mandate in the CCW have had a sudden change of heart, at least not on a mandate as envisaged in the Oslo Declaration. But, tactically, should they resist agreement of a negotiating mandate in the CCW or go along with the EU's text? Or should they try to water down such proposals or/and present one of their own? This week we may see some indications of intent.

In late February, the new UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, described the CCW and work in Oslo as "complementary and mutually reinforcing". From a humanitarian point-of-view, it could be argued that this is already borne out by the disruptive effect that Oslo has had on the CCW's previous status quo in which the humanitarian effects of cluster munitions remained relatively peripheral. It remains to be seen how things play out though, and we'll try to bring you more updates in the course of this week.


John Borrie


References

Official documents and proposals in the CCW are accessible here.

Photo retrieved from Flickr.

Cluster Munitions: The Road from Lima

Disarmament Insight note – although the world's biggest producers of cluster munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima, to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the final day of the Lima Conference and offers some concluding thoughts.

Many predicted issues about how to define key terms for an international humanitarian instrument on cluster munitions to be the most contentious for the Lima Conference. With these rescheduled from Friday morning to Thursday (see previous posts) and now out of the way, the final day of the Lima Conference was more relaxed in tone, with transparency, compliance and procedural issues scheduled for talks before the closing ceremony.

Most delegates agreed that the transparency measures developed for the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention should generally be taken as a model for a cluster munitions treaty (although it was noted that certain improvements could be made). The NGO Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) made several suggestions in this regard, such as provisions requiring national reports to be made public. It also suggested that states consider making the disclosure of information regarding past use of cluster munitions mandatory, if it would help with ongoing clearance efforts.

Compliance measures were also discussed, including domestic penal sanctions for treaty violations. Talks also covered the number of accessions by states for any treaty agreed to enter into force internationally. The Mine Ban Convention required 40 signatures, while the fifth protocol of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) on explosive remnants of war required only 20. NGOs, predictably, pushed for a low threshold – of 20 – but others, such as the Netherlands, questioned this.

Other issues will also have an impact on the effectiveness of any treaty on cluster munitions. One challenge will be in determining how to coordinate humanitarian efforts to deal with cluster munitions, mines, and other explosive remnants or war: because there are three different treaties dealing with these related subjects doesn’t necessarily mean that there need to be three different forums and institutions to address these problems.

This withstanding, some aspects of any treaty on cluster munitions, notably clearance and international assistance, will need to be coordinated in order to ensure that resources are devoted to the most pressing needs on the ground. This same logic extends to a variety of other areas of the treaty, including the need for regular meetings.

In this regard, many delegates observed how useful an implementation and support unit for the Mine Ban Convention has been, and it’s likely that this kind of unit would be useful for implementing a future cluster munition treaty. But aspects of its work would be quite different in the case of cluster munitions. Among other areas, different information on stockpiles, destruction and other areas of implementation will be required. Further thinking seems to be needed here, not least as work in the Oslo Process evolves and the requirements of an international humanitarian instrument to deal with the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions becomes clearer.

So what does it all mean?

Most delegates at Lima I spoke with came away from the Conference with the impression it was a success. Not only had a variety of issues been discussed in a productive manner, virtually all states there expressed commitment to reaching a treaty in one multilateral configuration or another (Oslo Process and/or the CCW).

It feels like a long time until early December and the next round of the work of the Oslo Process in Vienna. In the meantime, there are a few days of CCW experts’ talks in Geneva in June and its Meeting of States Parties in November. It is unclear what progress the CCW will make, although some states in that forum are pushing for a negotiating mandate on cluster munitions.

At Lima, some of these same states – who are in favour of more limited restrictions on cluster munitions – largely avoided engaging in substantial debate about the shortcomings of submunition self-destruct mechanisms and the testing of failure rates, which are nevertheless key elements of the rationales behind their postures.

The hope expressed by some in the Oslo Process is that the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) Montreux Expert Meeting report due to be released shortly will prompt more direct engagement (John Borrie attended Montreux: see his post of 24 April for more details). Indeed, in the last minutes of the Lima Conference, the ICRC noted that the burden of proof is shifting to those who defend these technical approaches to show that those proposals are capable of addressing the humanitarian impacts cluster munitions cause.

Meanwhile, the Oslo process won’t stand still. At Lima, states announced initiatives to hold regional meetings in Latin America, Africa and possibly Eastern Europe. Peru announced that it would work towards a regional cluster munition-free zone. Hungary received a round of applause from NGOs and others on Wednesday when it announced that it would destroy its existing stockpiles of cluster munitions soon, demonstrating the ongoing value of national action from individual states. New Zealand announced it will host a round of the Oslo Process in Wellington from 18 to 22 February 2008.

Disarmament Insight will continue to follow these issues, so check in regularly.


This is a guest blog from James Stocker. Jamie is a researcher on UNIDIR’s project on “The humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions: practitioners’ perspectives”.


References

For more information about the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, visit the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining's Implementation Support Unit website.

The ICRC expects to have its summary report of the Montreux meeting available in early June. It can be downloaded from the ICRC website.

Photo retrieved from Human Rights Watch,© 2006 UN Mine Action Coordination Center for southern Lebanon.

Lima: Defining cluster munitions and destroying stockpiles

Disarmament Insight note – although the world's biggest producers of the munitions - the United States, Russia and China - are still not among them, delegates from 68 countries met late last week in the Peruvian capital, Lima, to broaden support for a declaration agreed to in Norway in February calling for a ban on cluster bombs by 2008. More than a third joined the process for the first time, having missed the Oslo meeting. The post below from our guest blogger Jamie Stocker reports on the second day of this meeting: reporting on the Lima Conference’s final day will follow soon.

The second day of the three-day Lima Conference began with talks about storage and stockpile destruction of cluster munitions. Though the majority of delegates expressed support for the destruction of banned weapons as soon as possible, others thought it necessary to allow more time, as well as renewal periods for states “unable” to destroy their stockpiles within the set deadlines. Why the controversy over this seemingly mundane, technical issue?

Part of the problem is, well, technical. Many speakers acknowledged that the destruction of cluster munitions stockpiles is generally more complicated than, say, anti-personnel mines. Whereas many types of land mines can basically be stacked in a pile, lined with explosives and blown up (PLEASE don’t try this at home, kids), cluster munitions must often be disassembled and individual explosive submunitions destroyed separately.

Financial considerations also come into play. More “technical” disposal is likely to be more expensive, though exact figures aren’t available. In this regard, more expert input will be necessary down the road – Belgium noted that its experience in destroying its stockpiles could be useful.

Some states were also frank about another “financial” aspect: the costs of replacing prohibited cluster munitions with other types of weapons to perform missions that militaries currently use cluster munitions for. Others labeled this as a ”national security” rather than a security issue. Implicitly, this allows for the possibility of continued cluster munition use (at least, within this time frame) – precisely what this process is trying to prevent.

All delegations seemed to agree on the need for international cooperation, including developing countries, many of which took the opportunity to discuss their own problems with land mines and explosive remnants of war (ERW). This issue is relatively uncontroversial for the moment. But it’s likely to require coordination with other instruments that already address international cooperation in related areas, including the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and the 2003 Protocol V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Lunchtime was filled with discussion about what the afternoon definitions debate would bring (see previous posts). At its outset, the session co-chair wisely cautioned against getting hung up on the differences between regulating and prohibiting certain types at this point, but to rather have a discussion of the issues surrounding unacceptable harm.

However, this distinction turned out to be uncontroversial, since a number of states that have been assumed to support a more limited restriction (such as the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands) made it clear that they were here to ban a certain class of weapon. Nor did these delegations draw any “red lines” on weapons they’d like to keep, though they and a number of others insisted on the relevance of self-destruct mechanisms and failure rates for these discussions.

No one disputed this point, though several states and the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) did note that evidence is lacking to show that these devices are capable of preventing humanitarian impact. The CMC suggested that the burden of proof was now on states to prove that these weapons were not and could not be harmful, rather than the other way around.

Definitions, of course, aren’t just limited to that of cluster munitions themselves. As several delegations, including Germany, pointed out, other terms may need discussion, such as submunitions, victims, assistance, etc. The German draft proposal to the CCW, for instance, contains 13 different definitions, while the Lima draft discussion text only had one.

However, it might be asked if some concepts need to be defined, or whether they could left out of the text altogether. “Dangerous duds”, for instance, was considered by some to be a “dangerous definition” that could lead to the false impression that some duds are actually safe.

Too bad that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s report on its April Montreux meeting of experts wasn’t out in time for this week’s meeting (see John Borrie’s blog from 24 April). Although this meeting reached no outcomes, its report may shed light on these definitional issues in time for the CCW June expert meeting in Geneva.


This is a guest blog from James Stocker. Jamie is a researcher on UNIDIR’s project on “The humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions: practitioners’ perspectives”.


Reference

Picture of PTAB submunitions piled up near Bagram, Afghanistan, in 2002. These were part of a munition dump containing 60,000 tons of unexploded ordnance. Image courtesy of John Rodsted and Norwegian People's Aid. Downloaded from Norwegian People's Aid.

Lima: Schedule Switcheroo

The Lima Conference on cluster munitions got off to a solid start this morning with a presentation by Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) representative Branislav Kaperanovic, a Serbian former clearance worker and cluster munition victim who expressed his hope for broadening support for the Oslo Process. Representatives of two countries affected by cluster munitions, Lebanon and Cambodia, then took the podium in succession. Neither are producers or users of cluster munitions, yet both are among the most heavily affected countries in the world. All of these speakers sounded notes of urgency about the need to deal with the effects of cluster munitions at the international level, knowing firsthand their effects.

Peru, the Conference chair introduced the programme of work for the three-day meeting, which will revolve around thematic discussions. But springs began popping out of the sofa when France proposed that discussion of “general obligations, scope of application and definitions”, which was scheduled for Friday morning, be discussed much sooner. Over the next 45 minutes these comments were echoed by a number of (mostly European) states keen to move discussion of definitions ahead of what they considered “less important” issues such as victim assistance, clearance, storage and stockpile destruction, and transparency.

However, this proposal encountered resistance from other present, especially developing and affected countries, as well as other states closely associated with the Oslo Process. One of them, Austria, proposed a winning compromise: switch the Friday morning discussions for those scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

Why all this fuss over when to discuss definitions and obligations? Those arguing for the change argued that the Lima Conference should make it clear from the beginning exactly what weapons were being discussed in the context of regulation of prohibition. Earlier Disarmament Insight posts have noted that a key issue for any international instrument to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions is that of defining exactly what will be regulated or prohibited, not least because a very broad definition could go well beyond the comfort zones of many.

Fair enough. But this concern can detract from a broader point (and underlined earlier in the morning by Cambodia) that the Conference has the task of working toward addressing “both existing and potential suffering” associated with these weapons. These go beyond issues of regulation to measures to dispose of unexploded submunitions and assist victims, for example. So many eyes rolled when the view was put forward implying these are just downstream issues.

Another inevitable talking point concerned the relationship between the Oslo Process and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). Though a few states expressed a preference for negotiating in one forum over the other, the majority expressed their support for whichever forum could, in practice, address the issues at hand in an effective manner.

On the whole, it was a long day. But spirits remain positive: a successful compromise on a small change in schedule that nevertheless reflected a big point was negotiated. And, on substantive issues, a lot of common ground was recognized.

Check in over the next few days for further impressions of the Lima talks, including on stockpile storage and destruction, as well as on the “dangerous definitions” discussions.


This is a guest blog from James Stocker. Jamie is a researcher on UNIDIR’s project on “The humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions: practitioners’ perspectives”.


References

The Lima Conference Chair’s discussion text can be downloaded in English and Spanish from the Cluster Munition Coalition’s website at: http://www.stopclustermunitions.org.

Photo of the Machu Picchu, the "Lost City of the Incas" (retrieved from Wikipedia).

Civil Society Forum Sets the Tone for the Lima Conference

I'm Jamie Stocker and, over the next few days, I’ll be posting updates on the progress of the international conference I’m attending in Lima, Peru, on cluster munitions, which starts today and finishes on Friday. This conference follows the Oslo Conference held in February (see previous posts) and seeks to both broaden support for its goals and deepen discussions on “cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians”.

Yesterday, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) hosted a Regional Civil Society Forum in Lima on “Taking Action On Cluster Munitions”, which I attended as an observer. This forum had several goals, including trying to set the tone for the Lima conference of states, attracting media attention (including from what I have been told is a very interested Peruvian media), countering arguments against efforts to address through regulation or prohibition the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions, as well as outlining the CMC’s “expectations” on what it wants to see come out of the Oslo process.

Unfortunately, there isn’t space in this short post to give a comprehensive overview of the day’s proceedings. Among those speaking at the Forum, however, were Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams and Peruvian Ombudswomen Beatriz Merino. Rae McGrath of Handicap International began the morning English language session with a discussion of the clusters issue, driving home a point about the indiscriminate effect of cluster munitions by “scattering” a handful of (thankfully unused) teabags from the breakfast room among the audience.

Further highlights included two further statements read on behalf of Nobel Peace Prize laureates. In the first statement, South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on African states to play a leading role in the clusters munition campaign, noting that while African nations had been heavily involved in the process leading to the mine ban (Ottawa) treaty, only 4 of 47 signatories of the Oslo Declaration were from Africa.

The second statement on behalf of a group of six women Nobel Peace laureates praised the Oslo Process’s efforts to address “these especially pernicious weapons of ill repute” (crediting Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch with coining this phrase). This list of supportive Nobel Peace laureates was later further expanded, as a Costa Rican representative underlined the support of President Oscar Arias, who received the prize in 1987 for his efforts to end conflicts in several Central American countries.

Beyond political statements, those present also got down to looking at aspects of the issues surrounding cluster munitions in some depth, and there were presentations by a number of experts and NGOs. Many of these talks were sophisticated in dissecting the types of arguments used for the continued military utility of cluster munitions (for instance, see Human Rights Watch’s document, “Myths and Realities about Cluster Munitions” – reference below. See also their short film embedded in this post.) Moreover, some seemed to directly address elements of various proposals and discussion papers circulated at the ICRC meeting in Montreux in April and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) informal meeting in Geneva last week.



The Forum was also an unprecedented opportunity to discuss cluster munitions in the Latin American regional context, including confirmed or alleged use of this weapon in several countries.

On the whole, the presenters were well-organized and expressed conviction and clarity of purpose. It will be interesting to see to what extent states attending the Lima Conference follow this example as they move to address these issues over the next days and months.

I’ll keep you posted.


This is a guest blog from James Stocker. Jamie is a researcher on UNIDIR’s project on “The humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions: practitioners’ perspectives”.


References

The Oslo Declaration can be downloaded here.

Human Rights Watch, “Myths and Realities about Cluster Munitions”: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/clusters/myths0307/.

Human Rights Watch, short film on cluster munitions available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpGMiAlVM6g.

More information about UNIDIR’s project on “The humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions: practitioners’ perspectives” is at: http://www.unidir.org/bdd/fiche-activite.php?ref_activite=339.

Drawing a circle around cluster munitions

Last Friday, in our last Disarmament Insight post, Patrick Mc Carthy noted the launch of a report by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Handicap International (HI) entitled “Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities”. It follows Handicap International’s preliminary report about the socio-economic effects of cluster munitions, “Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions,” released in early November 2006.

To briefly recap, “Fatal Footprint” identified 11,044 casualties (3,830 killed, 5,581 injured) directly related to cluster munition use in 23 countries and territories. 98% of these casualties were reportedly civilians. With 91% of such casualties occurring in countries with incomplete or zero data collection, it’s also highly likely that many casualties go unrecorded, HI noted.

Authorities in only three of the 23 countries and territories in HI’s report collected data on casualties while in conflict. Moreover, many victims in high-use areas like Afghanistan and Cambodia go unreported altogether, and many others caused by unexploded submunitions aren’t differentiated from those caused by other explosive remnants of war. A lack of information about specific casualties caused by cluster munitions during or after strikes – like who was involved and what they were doing – is an issue for any comprehensive effort at casualty data collection. HI estimated that only about 10% of casualty information was available in its November 2006 report.

In its more comprehensive “Circle of Impact” report released last week, HI “calls for a ban on cluster munitions and for assistance to civilians”. The total number of casualties it quoted as caused by cluster munitions rose to 13,306 (5,475 killed, 7,246 injured) in 25 countries and territories. The overall focus of the new report is on the civilian victims and the broader socio-economic challenges presented by cluster munition use during, and long after, conflict. Some country-specific recommendations of ways forward were offered, along with extensive data analysis.

HI’s reports are cautious steps toward building a clear picture of what the effects of cluster munitions really are. It builds on useful work already done by other actors like the International Committee of the Red Cross, Landmine Action UK, Human Rights Watch and, indeed, UNIDIR. But as HI would be the first to admit, this picture is still very incomplete.

HI’s press-pack distributed to journalists in Geneva last week to accompany its “Circle of Impact” report noted its launch “just one week before states gather in Lima, Peru (23-25 May), to discuss a draft text of a treaty to ban cluster munitions and create a framework for cooperation and assistance to survivors and communities affected by this weapon by 2008”.

In public, HI and other NGOs are highly optimistic about the progress the Lima meeting will make in negotiating a treaty text to address the humanitarian impacts of cluster munitions. This needs to be taken with a grain of salt: while Peru, as chair of that meeting, has distributed a discussion paper containing a sample text of what a future instrument might look like, it seems unlikely that governments will have time to briefly discuss more than the broad themes of an agreement in just three days. More likely, negotiators won’t get down to textual brass tacks until later this year, either in Oslo in early December as the next chapter in the unfolding story of the “Oslo Process”, or (much less likely) in the context of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in Geneva.

Whatever the caveats necessary on “Circle of Impact” because of the limits of data gathering, the report’s real significance is in its timing. Emerging only days before the Lima meeting, HI’s work reinforces the message about the seriousness of the hazard created by cluster munitions – something that humanitarian practitioners have been trying to get through to the international community for a while.

The “Circle of Impact” press release also notes that already such concerns have “resulted in at least 55 countries… taking initiatives towards a prohibition on cluster munitions.” This strikes me as premature. A lot is going to hinge on negotiators eventually defining what a cluster munition that causes “unacceptable harm” to civilians is in the terminology of the February 2006 Oslo Declaration (see previous posts). That’s ultimately a political question, despite legal and technical dimensions, and will need considerable skill to settle. Meanwhile, as the Lima meeting begins, some states participating recognise humanitarian concerns about cluster munitions and are willing to respond, but nevertheless view them as useful elements of their military arsenals. They don’t seem willing to give up cluster munitions with explosive submunitions entirely, at least not yet.

Watch this space for updates about work in Lima.


Ashley Thornton


References

The final report, Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities, and the HI Press Release are available here.

Photo of a B-1B Lancer unleashing cluster munitions (retrieved from Wikipedia).

Facing the facts on cluster munitions

People who live and work in areas where cluster munitions have been used are only too familiar with the horrific humanitarian impact of this weapons system, both at the time of use and for long after the bombs have stopped falling.

NGOs and UN bodies have been documenting this impact for years, in greater and greater disturbing detail. But on Wednesday (May 16), the NGO Handicap International sketched the most complete picture yet of the impact that cluster munitions have on the lives, limbs and livelihoods of the people unfortunate enough to live in their midst. Their report makes for sobering reading. Its key findings include:

- The available data shows that cluster munitions have nearly always been used in or near civilian populated areas against unknown or unspecified targets

- 400 million people currently live among unexploded cluster sub-munitions

- 98 percent of cluster sub-munition casualties are civilians, killed and injured while returning home in the aftermath of conflict or while going about their daily tasks to survive

- The majority of victims are poor, uneducated males, many of them boys under the age of 18

These are just some of the hard facts that will have to be faced by the governments gathering in Lima, Peru, on May 23-25 to take the first step along the path agreed in Oslo in February (see the May 15 and April 24 postings by John Borrie for background on the "Oslo process" on cluster munitions).

The Oslo declaration does not - necessarily - foresee a complete ban on cluster munitions, but rather a ban on those cluster munitions that cause "unacceptable harm" to civilians. The Handicap International report has made it more difficult to claim that some cluster munitions cause harm that is "acceptable" in any humane sense of the word.

To pass the muster of international humanitarian law, the military advantage to be gained from the use of a weapon must be proportional to the civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects caused by the attack. This notion of "proportionality," it seems to me, is closely related to the concept of "unacceptable harm" that will be at the heart of the Oslo process negotiations.

Clearly, a 98 percent civilian casualty rate is neither proportional nor acceptable. It is also difficult to imagine what cumulative military advantage could be worth 400 million people living in daily fear of losing their lives or their loved ones.


Patrick Mc Carthy


References

"Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities." Handicap International - http://en.handicapinternational.be/index.php

Photo by Dave Mitchell on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/davemitchell/279352521/. The photo is of a child picking up a fake cluster sub-munition at a Derry Anti-War Coalition demonstration (Northern Ireland).

Cluster munitions: do not adjust your set?

For the last couple of weeks, blog postings on this site have focused on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with help from our guest blogger, Patricia Lewis.

A very different meeting is to take place in Lima, Peru, next week about addressing the hazards of cluster munitions for civilians as part of the “Oslo Process”. It follows a groundbreaking conference of governments, as well as international organizations and civil society in Oslo, Norway, in February.

The Oslo Declaration that emerged commits 46 governments to completing an international treaty by the end of 2008 to “prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.” (A link to the text of the Oslo Declaration is below. See my blog posting from 24 April for more background.)

More in coming postings about the Oslo Process. In the meantime, what does explosive submunition contamination actually look like in the field?

We might imagine, for instance, that unexploded submunitions would be relatively easy to see, and thus avoid. After all, they’re not deliberately buried and concealed like landmines. So why should they be of special humanitarian concern?

At the Oslo Conference, the humanitarian organization Norwegian People’s Aid showed all those participating this brief video clip by independent photographer John Rodsted of “cluster bomb duds that shouldn’t exist” in Southern Lebanon.



The viewing had a chilling effect on all of those present in the conference room, an audience composed in large part of government representatives, as those watching realized that John was filming on Lebanese ground contaminated by submunitions that had failed to function correctly. Filming as he went, John literally walked among the hazardous M-85 duds to show how small and difficult to see they are – you can hear the nervousness in his voice.

Looking for unexploded submunitions like this is not to be generally recommended (John has a great deal of experience in these situations, and was under the supervision of explosive ordnance disposal professionals). But it underlines why the input of civil society perspectives, and especially views from the field, are so important to keeping multilateral decision making real. A short video cut through acres of the usual conference room baloney of diplomats and politicians who have in many cases never even seen an unexploded submunition with their own eyes. It helped to give those present some clarity of purpose, which other multilateral meetings closed to the real world sometimes can lack.

Reactions to the clip since it’s been posted on Youtube have been curious. A few viewers, of course, are unable to see beyond their tired prejudices, descending into infantile, aggressive and frequently misspelled ranting, and even claiming the video was faked. No mindset adjustment for them then.

Others watching it were clearly unsettled. Judging from their comments the clip has challenged them, not least about cluster munitions but also possibly to think more deeply about what are legitimate means and methods of war. That’s an important question for every thinking person in the current age.

Watch the video. What do you think?


John Borrie


References

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry has an English language web page with the Oslo Declaration, statements and other resources about addressing the humanitarian impacts of civilians (click here to access this web page).

Video clip by independent photographer John Rodsted of “cluster bomb duds that shouldn’t exist” in Southern Lebanon, available on Youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_jsyObTG8k.