Activists want cluster bomb ban ratified swiftly

States must ratify a new treaty banning cluster munitions swiftly to avoid delay in clearing and destroying stockpiles of the weapons blamed for heavy civilian casualties, campaigners said.

Around 100 governments are expected to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions by today in the Norwegian capital, though the big military powers and arms-producers - the US, China, Russia - and others will be absent.

Cluster bombs contain up to hundreds of submunitions, also called bomblets, that blanket wide areas, which campaigners say make them indiscriminate killers. Since not all the submunitions explode upon impact, duds on the ground pose lethal dangers to civilians for decades after they are used in combat.

"We're celebrating today but countries must not take their eye off the ball," said Thomas Nash, coordinator of the London-based Cluster Munition Coalition, an umbrella group for non-governmental organisations that have fought for the ban.

The treaty, which was adopted by 107 countries in Dublin in May, will enter into force six months after 30 states have ratified it and deposited the instruments with the UN in New York.

"We need 30 ratifications as soon as possible so that the obligations in this treaty will begin to bite," said Nash whose CMC wants it to take effect before the end of next year.

"So we are going to be pushing hard for ratification," he said. Norway, Ireland and the Holy See have completed ratification before even signing, he added.

The convention bans use, stockpiling and trading of the weapons. It also requires signatories to clear contaminated areas within 10 years and to destroy stockpiles within eight years of it entering into force for any state.

"The sooner we get entry into force, the sooner those deadlines kick in," Mr Nash said.

Altogether 115 states have registered to attend the Oslo conference, but 10 or more may not sign as not all have completed the formalities in their own countries for doing so, a Norwegian official said.

"So we won't have an exact number until the signing is over," foreign ministry spokesman Bjoern Svennungsen said.

Once the treaty is signed at Oslo's City Hall in a ceremony stretching over two days, it will go to the UN headquarters in New York where more states will be able to sign.

The effort to ban cluster munitions began less than two years ago at an Oslo conference in February last year. The drive to push it through patterned itself after the campaign that led to a 1997 treaty in Ottawa to ban landmines.

Jody Williams, the American who won the Nobel Peace Prize with her landmine campaign last year, said that like the landmine ban the cluster bomb treaty would effectively stigmatise the weapon even though some big powers do not adopt it.

She hoped future US President Barack Obama would sign the ban.

"Mr Obama tells us to look for hope and change," she said. "I like hope and change, but I want to see him sign it."

"Eventually the stigmatisation makes a big difference, like it did with landmines," she said. "Even though the US hasn't signed the treaty, it has essentially obeyed all its elements... and even renounced future production of landmines.

Factbox

What are they?

• A cluster bomb, or cluster munition, is a weapon containing multiple explosive submunitions. They are dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground and are designed to break open in mid-air, releasing the submunitions which can cover an area the size of several football fields.

• Anyone in that area is very likely to be killed or seriously injured. Many bomblets fail to detonate immediately, and, like land mines, can maim and kill years later.

When and where have they been used?

• The Soviet Union first used cluster bombs in 1943 against Nazi troops.

• Between 1964 and 1973, the US military dropped an estimated 260 million cluster munitions in Laos. So far, fewer than 400,000 have been cleared, a meagre 0.47 per cent and at least 11,000 people have been killed - At least 15 countries have used cluster bombs, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, Israel, Morocco, The Netherlands, Britain, Russia and the US. A small number of non-state armed groups have used them.

• Cluster bombs were used extensively in the Gulf War, Chechnya, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

• The UN estimated that Israel used up to four million submunitions in Lebanon during a 2006 war against Hizbollah guerillas, who also fired more than 100 cluster munition rockets into northern Israel.

• Russia used several types of cluster munitions, both air- and ground-launched, in a number of locations in Georgia's Gori district in 2008. Also Georgia used cluster munitions in the August 2008 conflict with Russia.

Deadly legacy

• One third of all recorded cluster munitions casualties are children. Sixty per cent of cluster bomb casualties are people injured while undertaking everyday activities.

Stockpiles

• Billions of submunitions are stockpiled by some 76 countries. A total of 34 states are known to have produced more than 210 different types.

• In March 2007 Belgium became the first country to make it a crime to invest in companies that make cluster bombs.