Australia Supports Retrograde International Legislation on Cluster Munitions.
Is the government genuine in its stated commitment to eradicate cluster bombs?
The credibility of the government’s intention to eradicate cluster munitions is now being questioned internationally as a result of Australia’s support for a proposed new protocol to the established United Nations Convention on Conventional Weapons. (CCW) Disturbingly, this protocol allows extensive use of cluster bombs which are already prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), thereby contradicting and undermining it.
In December 2008, Australia signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM),indicating the government’s intention to be bound by the obligations in this treaty. These obligations include a commitment not to use, produce, stockpile or transfer cluster munitions under any circumstances. Going further, a State Party to the Convention is also obliged to use its best efforts to dissuade other parties from using cluster munitions.
Australia’s commitment to the CCM has been widely questioned due to draft domestic legislation which does its best to appear faithful to the treaty’s obligations, while failing to uphold the intent and object of the treaty.
The latest position taken by Australia on the proposed new protocol simply reinforces the belief that Australia is not genuinely committed to the eradication of cluster bombs.
In flagrant disregard for the humanitarian aims of the CCM , the protocol bans only those cluster munitions manufactured before 1980. ie those which are now more than 30 years old, outmoded and ready for destruction and redundancy.By contrast, those used more recently in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq would all be legal.
Another fundamental flaw in the text is a provision that exempts the use of cluster munitions that are designed to leave up to 1% unexploded ordnance as well as the use of cluster munitions where the explosive munitions possess only one safeguard mechanism.
This is despite the clear devastation they have caused, the blatant failure of their so-called self destruct mechanisms and their on-going legacy of death and injury. To say that efforts will be made to minimise rates of unexploded ordnance has no real meaning when this technology has been clearly shown to fail.
John Rodsted has spent more than 20 years documenting the global landmine and cluster munition situation and his photographs taken first hand in Lebanon illustrate this point more vividly than words.
If passed the protocol does not even demand adherence for 12 years and given extended negotiations this is likely to be even longer. The result would legally enable a repetition of the human misery that cluster bombs have caused in places such as Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Georgia, Lebanon, Libya, Thailand, Chechnya, West Sahara and Afghanistan.
While the protocol cynically masquerades as a genuine move to address the scourge of cluster munitions it underhandedly acts as a vehicle to legitimise their further use.
It is difficult to see that it serves the interests of anyone except cluster munitions manufacturers and users.
Given that the adoption of this protocol would represent a most disturbing precedent in international law, that of regressing from higher humanitarian standards to lower ones, it is imperative that the Australian government does not support it. If Australia is genuinely committed to the CCM then the government should speak out openly to recognise and proclaim that the Convention on Cluster Munitions is the reference for the prohibitions of this weapon and resist any moves which would weaken it or dilute its provisions. Australia’s current position of support for the protocol, last expressed in New York on October 20, is a clear refusal to use our best efforts to dissuade others not to use cluster munitions.
As Friend of the Chair at the forthcoming Review Conference Australia will play a pivotal role in facilitating the text for discussion. The eyes of all nations will be upon us. Will we stand by a commitment to eradicate cluster bombs and then enact genuine national legislation or will we subvert and destroy its validity of the CCM by supporting a weak and retrograde protocol?
We are now at a crossroad for international law and cluster munitions. If the proposed protocol passes, then cluster munitions will continue to devastate lives and communities.If it fails to pass and we can get more countries solidly behind the Convention on Cluster Munitions then we have a chance of changing the future for many people.
If this happened here would we support further cluster bomb use?
For more information
To see the text of the treaty which will be discussed during the Fourth Review Conference to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) to be held in Geneva between 14-November and 25 Novembergo to: