Dr MARK ZIRNSAK, national co-ordinator for the Australian Network to Ban Landmines and the director of the Justice and International Mission Unit, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Uniting Church in Australia, examines what the new treaty means…
In Dublin between 19th and 30th May, 110 governments negotiated a new international treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, that will ban cluster munitions that “cause unacceptable harm to civilians”. Australia was part of the negotiations.
While not perfect, this treaty will help on the path to getting rid of a class of weapon that has resulted in thousands of civilians being killed and maimed. The next step will be to get as many countries to sign up to the treaty as soon as possible.
THE DEVASTATING IMPACT: Six year old Abdullah was injured during a strike on Basra, Iraq in 2003. Submunitions were scattered over a residential area – smashing through the windows of his home as he slept, the shrapnel cut off his arm and tore open his abdomen. In 2003 the US and the UK dropped hundreds of thousands of submunitions on residential areas of Iraq. PICTURE: Danish Christian Aid Archive.
“Cluster bomblets pose a particular danger to civilians compared to other weapon systems because of the broad area of effect they have, lack of accuracy and the number of explosive duds left behind. Many of the bomblets do not explode on impact and then can lie around until they explode when touched, killing and maiming people for decades after a conflict ends.”
The Rudd Government is to be commended for its support in developing the new international treaty. It is hoped the Australian Government will be amongst the first to sign the new treaty when it is opened for signature in December in Oslo.
Cluster munitions are munitions (bombs, artillery shells and rockets) that contain two or more submunitions, but more usually in the hundreds, that break open on deployment to rain down the submunitions over a wide area.
Cluster bomblets pose a particular danger to civilians compared to other weapon systems because of the broad area of effect they have, lack of accuracy and the number of explosive duds left behind. Many of the bomblets do not explode on impact and then can lie around until they explode when touched, killing and maiming people for decades after a conflict ends. People in Laos continue to be killed and maimed by cluster bombs dropped in the Vietnam war, in fact an estimated 11,000 have been killed or injured since the war ended.
At least 14 countries have used cluster munitions, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, Israel, Russia, Sudan, the UK and the US. A small number of non-state armed groups have used the weapon (such as Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006). Billions of submunitions are stockpiled by some 76 countries. At least 24 countries have been affected by the use of cluster munitions.
Cluster munitions stand out as the weapon that poses the gravest dangers to civilians since antipersonnel mines, which were banned in 1997. The new treaty plugs a gap in international law to specifically address problems caused by cluster munitions.
The treaty bans all the cluster munitions that have been extensively used. Cluster munitions are exempted if the submunitions contained weigh more than 20 kg or has all the following characteristics:
• The munitions contains less than ten submunitions;
• Each submunition weighs more than 4 kg;
• Each submunition is designed to detect and engage a single target;
• Each submunition is equipped with an electronic self-destruct mechanism; and
• Each submunition is equipped with an electronic self-deactivation mechanism.
The treaty requires that stockpiles of banned cluster munitions be destroyed within eight years of the country becoming party to the treaty. Countries are able to apply for extensions of four years if they are unable to meet the eight year deadline for stockpile destruction.
Countries that become party to the treaty agree to clear all areas contaminated by unexploded cluster munitions within 10 years. Extensions of up to five years for clearance can be applied for. The country responsible for dropping the cluster munitions is strongly encouraged to provide assistance to the country that the munitions have been dropped on for their clearance.
The treaty requires that countries assist victims of cluster munitions under their control, which includes the families and communities of anyone injured by cluster munitions.
The Australian Department of Defence was able to get into the treaty the three loopholes it was seeking:
• Australia will be able to assist US forces in the use, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions, provided Australian troops themselves do not use the munitions and that Australia assesses that the use is in compliance with their understanding of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols;
• Australia will be able to keep the SMArt 155 artillery shells that have been recently purchased, each of which has two submunitions with the characteristics exempted by the treaty; and
• Australia will be able to keep an unlimited number of cluster munitions for research and training provided it believes that these are “the minimum number absolutely necessary” for the purpose.
Given that the Australian Department of Defence gained the caveats it was seeking, there appears to be little doubt that the Australian Government will sign the new treaty.
The new treaty will not affect current Australian operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as cluster munitions are not being used in these places at the moment. In fact, in a war against insurgents cluster munitions are not normally the weapon of choice. The deadly duds left behind by their use are a threat to your own forces on the ground and to the civilian populations, whose hearts and minds you are trying to win. Cluster munitions are more suitable for use against a regular army that is using armoured vehicles.
Many of the major manufacturers and users of cluster munitions have stayed outside of the treaty: the US, Russian Federation, Israel, Pakistan. However, the new treaty will put pressure on these countries to stop the production, sale and use of cluster munitions banned by the new treaty by creating a global norm where the use of these munitions is unacceptable.
However, this pressure will be weaker than it could have been due to the loophole in the new treaty that will allow a signatory to assist a country that stays outside of treaty in the use of cluster munitions.
The Rudd Government should make it clear that Australian forces will not provide such assistance to the use of these banned weapons. As the Rudd Government has accepted that certain cluster munitions are so harmful to civilian populations that they need to be banned, then Australian troops should not assist with the use of banned cluster munitions by countries that stay out of the treaty, such as the US. It will only be by making it clear to all governments that these weapons should not be used and making their use more difficult, that the new treaty will make a concrete difference to the future of warfare to discourage all countries from using the banned cluster munitions.
The Australian Government is part of a great opportunity to eliminate a class of weapons that have resulted in thousands of unnecessary and preventable deaths, often long after conflicts have ended. It must rigorously and unwaveringly pursue this outcome.
Dr Mark Zirnsak is the national co-ordinator for the Australian Network to Ban Landmines and the director of the Justice and International Mission Unit, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Uniting Church in Australia.
