On the failure of U.S. cluster bombs

Sit in front of the Lebanese parliament on the occasion of International Day of Action against Cluster Bombs(Reuters - Archive)

The failure of the U.S. effort to regulate the use of cluster bombs, rather than blocked after objections fifty countries, and activists say that anything less than a total ban of this type of bomb would be rose to unprecedented human rights laws.
Attempts have failed the last minute, led by the United States on Friday in Geneva to sign the international agreement to limit the use of cluster munitions when it hit fifty countries opposed calls to ban these munitions.
While the United States called on China and Russia to set controls only on the manufacture and use of cluster bombs, activists say that such controls would provide legitimacy to this kind of ammunition, which represents a retreat from the Oslo International, which seeks to ban it altogether.
He spent diplomats from 114 countries two weeks of negotiations in Geneva in an effort to conclude a treaty on cluster munitions less sophisticated bombs and missiles that split a large number of bomblets over a wide area and bomblets do not explode on impact to the land, and could pose a threat long after conflicts have ended.
The States defended on the draft treaty is supported by users and other major producers, including China, India, Israel and Russia.
On the other hand, a group of fifty countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America rejected the draft treaty, including several countries and signed the Oslo agreement of 2008 which imposes a blanket ban on the use, stockpiling, production and sale of cluster munitions.
Washington says that the draft treaty, which stipulates the prohibition of cluster munitions produced before 1980, provides an opportunity to organize major users and producers of weapons and those who own about 85% of global stocks, but they did not sign the Oslo Accords.
According to the proposed draft treaty, Washington has said it would give two million cluster bomblets, and about a hundred million of the bomblets, which exceeds the size of the weapons abandoned by the 111 countries that collectively signed the Oslo Accords.
Activists say that the U.S. efforts, and supported by countries, simply to put controls on the manufacture and use of cluster bombs is that lends legitimacy to this kind of ammunition, which represents a retreat from the Oslo International, which aims to ban it altogether.
The diplomats concluded that the failure to reach agreement in Geneva after four years of negotiations, and a decade of discussions on the UN Convention on conventional weapons, is a blow to the credibility of the United Nations as a forum for the development of international law on disarmament issues.


Source: Reuters New York Times