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The International Ban on Cluster Bombs took effect last Sunday, August 1. Since the Convention on Cluster Munitions opened for signature in Oslo in December 2008, over 100 countries have signed the treaty, with 37 countries having ratified it. Negotiations for the Convention were led by the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), an international network of more than 350 organizations founded in 2003 by groups like Human Rights Watch and Handicap International. The CMC also includes leaders from the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which led the movement toward the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. When cluster bombs are dropped, their canisters release mid-air, scattering bomblets over a wide area. Most bomblets explode immediately, but those that don’t can detonate many years after being dropped. The CMC reports that over one-third of cluster munitions victims are children who touch unexploded bombs. Laos, Vietnam and Iraq are the three most affected countries, and cluster bombs have most recently been used in the 2006 Israeli war against Lebanon, the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia, and the ongoing US/NATO war in Afghanistan. Although the US possesses the greatest stockpile of cluster bombs, it has to date refused to sign the treaty. Other non-signatories include Israel, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea, and Russia. According to the CMC, the convention bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. It also calls for countries to destroy their stockpiles in the next eight years, clear contaminated land in the next 10 years, and provide assistance to cluster munitions survivors and affected communities.

GUEST: Steve Goose, Director of the Arms Division at Human Rights Watch and co-chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition

Find out more at www.stopclustermunitions.org, www.hrw.org, and www.august1.org.