Free Breaking News

Cluster Bombs: Added to the List of Prohibited Weapons

William Crawley | 21:41 UK time, Wednesday, 28 May 2009

The list of prohibited weapons has been increasing each passing year and cluster bomb weapons have been added to that long list. Prohibited weapons are being enforced around the world to prevent casualties and cause disabilities among people. Human civilization in its brilliance has produced some of finest inventions ever known. But it also has produced some of the most horrible creations, those that bring death and suffering. Over the course of human history man has sought to make waging war efficient and easy and this gave rise to various weapons like cluster weapons.

Cluster bombs and Artillery shells

Cluster bombs are air-dropped or ground-launched weapons that open in mid-air and scatter dozens, hundreds, or thousands of smaller submunitions (or bomblets) over a wide area. Such munitions are effective against targets that do not have fixed locations, such as enemy soldiers or vehicles, and also against precise positions, such as airfields and missile sites. Artillery shells that employ principles similar to cluster munitions have existed for decades. And then when that happens, they explode, wreaking havoc on the lives of children, farmers, and other civilians who were just going about their day until a de facto land mine blew off their legs. They would be fortunate to have survived.

Awareness of international community regarding effects

Over the past several years, the international community has become increasingly aware of the deadly effects of the widespread use of cluster arms in areas of conflict and civil instability around the world. More and more, policymakers in national governments and international organizations, academic researchers, and the personnel of a wide range of both nongovernment relief and human rights organizations have experienced firsthand, or been accumulating data and knowledge about, the widespread death and injury caused by these weapons in dozens of conflict ridden countries. These weapons, some about the size of a Diet Coke can, get launched and plaster indiscriminate areas of land. Some of them explode on contact, but many get lodged in fields, strung from telephone wires, or embedded in trees, waiting for some innocent bystander to accidentally touch them.

Effects on non-combatant

Since unexploded bomblets scattered by cluster munitions can remain dormant for years after a conflict ends and then be triggered by a non-combatant (often a child), the Cluster Munition Coalition, the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations organizations, other organizations, and many nations began negotiations to produce a treaty banning submunition-based weapons in 2007. A draft treaty that would outlaw cluster bombs and give ratifying nations eight years to destroy such weapons was approved by more than 100 nations in May, 2008, and signed in December 2008.

Treaty ratification in 2010

Recently this treaty received the 30 ratifications necessary to enter into force in 2010. However among the nations that did not participate in the conference that adopted the draft were the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel.  What is striking is that the nations that did not participate in this monumental effort are the very same ones that popularized and openly use cluster weapons. So long as they are not made to abide by this treaty that attempts to make warfare humane the atrocious consequences of war will continue to malign humanity.

Reference:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0802/1224276042814.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/20108161921618518.html

August 9, 2010 - Posted by windowmelodies | Science & Technology | Cluster Bombs, Cluster Weapons, International Community, List of Prohibited Weapons, non-combatant