Western nations reverse course on cluster bombs

A process to ban cluster bombs by 2008 received a solid boost on Feb. 23 in a remarkable u-turn by countries such as Germany and Britain. The process was emboldened by the unexpected support of Germany, Canada, Italy and Britain, several important countries that had been dragging their feet only the day before, the first day of the two-day conference. On Feb. 22, these producers of cluster bombs had indicated or declared their preference for negotiations at the largely inefficient Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) meetings at the United Nations in Geneva. A cluster bomb is a container holding hundreds of smaller bomblets. It opens in mid-air and disperses the bomblets over a large area. The smaller bombs do not always explode on impact, which means they can continue to kill innocent civilians years later. According to the NGO Handicap International, 98 percent of cluster bomb casualties are civilians. Suggestions to even begin talks on cluster bombs were torpedoed at the CCW last November by veto-wielding producers or users such as the United States, China and Russia, prompting Norway to announce the two-day conference. The four stragglers and several others surprised many by deciding to come out in support of the final declaration of the conference after all. In the end, of the attending countries only Japan, Romania and Poland refused to support the declaration, referring instead to the CCW. The straggler states emphasized that the declaration is an "aspiration" rather than legally binding. But the declaration voices support for the process and outlines several steps ahead. Most important is the aim to achieve a legally binding ban by 2008, although even Norway's foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre said that such a short time-frame is an "ambitious" goal. A framework for caring for victims and their families as well as the clearance of unexploded cluster bombs, the provision of risk education and a commitment to destroying stockpiles is mentioned. The declaration states that there should be a prohibition on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs that "cause unacceptable harm to civilians," meaning that some types could be banned and others not. Several states lamented that the declaration did not mention the CCW, but supported it anyway.