The treaty stipulates that signatories must stop manufacturing these munitions, dispose of existing stockpiles within eight years, clear mines left by conflicts over a decade, and aid communities and victims of the bombs.
The ban entered into force six months after 37 states, including Britain, France, Germany and Japan, ratified the treaty, which was signed by 107 nations. Twenty-two of 29 Nato members are signatories. Spain completed the destruction of its stocks in 2009 while Norway and Moldova did so in recent months. Britain, Germany, and France, with 50 million cluster munitions each, have begun this onerous task.
India, the US, Russia, China, Pakistan, Brazil and Israel have not signed the treaty, finalised in Dublin in May 2008. India manufactures and stores the weapons in its military arsenals but has not, so far, used them.
Claiming cluster munitions are essential to its various war efforts round the world, the US, which has accumulated 80 million bomblets, has refused to agree to the treaty. However, Washington says it will ban the weapons in 2018. In the meantime, the US military says it has developed bomblets that automatically defuse after a specific period of time and that have a failure rate of only one per cent.
The most recent confirmed use of cluster bombs was by both Russia and Georgia during the 2008 conflict over South Ossetia. Cluster bomb shells, which can be fired from aircraft or by artillery, were first developed during World aWar II and used extensively by the US during the Vietnam war. There are essentially seven types of cluster bombs: anti-personnel, anti-tank, incendiary, anti-runway, mine laying, chemical and anti-electrical. Cluster shells contain hundreds of small sized bomb-lets that scatter over wide areas when the casings explode. Therefore, the use, in particular of anti-personnel shells, is indiscriminate and, opponents argue, illegal under the laws of war which prohibit targeting civilians. While generally employed during offensive operations, cluster munitions are also used as mini-landmines, making it impossible or difficult for forces to cross specific stretches of land.
Bomblets can remain in target areas for years, wounding and killing innocent civilians long after wars have ended and rendering dangerous large tracts of land. At least 14 states have employed these munitions, 28 countries have manufactured them, including India and Pakistan, and 76 have stockpiled them. Some 26 countries been badly affected by these bombs, including Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Angola, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon where Israel used cluster bombs in 1978, 1982, and 2006.
The Lebanese case was particularly egregious. During the final 72 hours of its 2006 war — and after it had accepted a UN ceasefire resolution — Israel fired 2-4 million bomblets into southern Lebanon, half of which did not explode on impact. Live cluster bomblets littered the streets and buildings of cities, towns and villages as well as the roads between them.
Although teams of deminers were quickly called into action, experts are still clearing these munitions from the country's hills, valleys and fields.
Jeff Abramson of the US-based Arms Control Coalition observed, “Lebanon was the turning point. It was the international out cry in 2006 that prompted the Norwegian government to start the negotiation process that has led to this new treaty.”
Certain dedicated governments, notably those of Norway and Ireland, and civil society bodies are responsible for this victory. Now that it has come into effect, state sponsors and the Cluster Bomb Coalition of non-governmental organisations that campaigned for the ban hope the treaty will force non-signatories to end or curb their use of these munitions. The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Jakob Kennenberger pointed out that the treaty “stigmatises the use of cluster munitions.”
Cluster bombs could have been included in the ban on anti-personnel mines laid down in the Ottawa or Mine Ban Treaty of 1997 which became effective in March 1999. There are 156 states who are parties to the treaty and 39 states which have not agreed to its terms.
Among the countries not party to the treaty are India, Pakistan, Israel, China and the US. Since its entry into force, more than 44 million mines (excluding cluster munitions) have been destroyed, 86 countries have eliminated their stockpiles and another 63 have declared that they never possessed these weapons in the first place. Seventeen countries have cleared mines on their territory and been declared “mine free”.
Among these countries is Rwanda, an African nation that has suffered greatly from war as well as the genocide of 1994. One of the leading campaigners against landmines was Diana, princess of Wales, who visited the minefields of Angola to publicise the devastation these weapons can cause.