For several years, Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and Kim Jong Il’s government in North Korea have been slowly strengthening their diplomatic and military ties, largely beneath the international radar.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions clearly permits joint military operations, but countries that have joined the treaty should prohibit all assistance with using cluster munitions. They should remember the purpose behind the treaty they negotiated and make no exceptions.
Russia has not only caused civilian casualties with its use of cluster munitions in Georgia, but it has also blatantly disregarded the international decision to ban the weapons. In the process, Russia has demonstrated that states around the world cannot become complacent about the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which 107 of them adopted in May. They must sign and ratify the treaty as soon as possible so that its obligations enter into force and its stigmatization power grows.
Before it is too late, the UK needs to start showing some humanitarian principles and some political backbone. As a close ally of the US and a major military player on the global stage, it is important that the UK remains on board the Oslo process. But it is also essential that the UK follow up on Brown's helpful statement this week and start standing for the interests of the victims - past, present and future - of these horrible weapons.
We’ve gathered at the home of the Gaelic Games to write a major new piece of international law. Here in the massive Croke Park Stadium in Dublin, nearly 1,000 diplomats and campaigners are thronging the chilly halls to hammer out the final text of a treaty banning cluster munitions. The United Kingdom is one of the lynchpin nations here, but they are clinging to their last cluster munitions and have thoroughly isolated themselves.
Cluster-munitions leave a deadly legacy for years because once dropped, they scatter hundreds of unguided bomblets randomly over a wide area - and then many fail to explode. In effect, they turn into landmines. And just as campaigners spurred a global ban on anti-personnel landmines in the wake of the CCW's inability to do so, the aim today is to ban cluster-bombs that kill civilians around the world every week of every year.
The United States and Israel, as well as dozens of other countries that are makers, sellers or stockpilers of weapons, are in the cross hairs of an international movement to abolish cluster bombs.
According to the police report, Kamaleddine Mohammad was gathering wood near the Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camp outside Tyre in Lebanon last month when he stepped on an unexploded submunition from a cluster bomb. Mohammad was yet another victim of Israel's cluster bombing campaign at the end of last summer's war between Israel and Hizbollah. He is one of the tens of thousands of civilians killed or injured by cluster munitions in war zones throughout the world in recent decades.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Jakarta today is intended to showcase Indonesia's transition to democracy. It follows the Bush Administration's controversial decision to reestablish full relations with the Indonesian Military (TNI). That move opens the door to renewed U.S. assistance, but pumping aid to an unreformed Indonesian military would serve only to encourage further rights abuses and undermine civilian governance.
Back in 2006, Israel's profligate use of cluster munitions in Lebanon caught the public eye, nowhere more so than in the Arab world.
For several years, Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) and Kim Jong Il’s government in North Korea have been slowly strengthening their diplomatic and military ties, largely beneath the international radar.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions clearly permits joint military operations, but countries that have joined the treaty should prohibit all assistance with using cluster munitions. They should remember the purpose behind the treaty they negotiated and make no exceptions.
Russia has not only caused civilian casualties with its use of cluster munitions in Georgia, but it has also blatantly disregarded the international decision to ban the weapons. In the process, Russia has demonstrated that states around the world cannot become complacent about the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which 107 of them adopted in May. They must sign and ratify the treaty as soon as possible so that its obligations enter into force and its stigmatization power grows.
Before it is too late, the UK needs to start showing some humanitarian principles and some political backbone. As a close ally of the US and a major military player on the global stage, it is important that the UK remains on board the Oslo process. But it is also essential that the UK follow up on Brown's helpful statement this week and start standing for the interests of the victims - past, present and future - of these horrible weapons.
We’ve gathered at the home of the Gaelic Games to write a major new piece of international law. Here in the massive Croke Park Stadium in Dublin, nearly 1,000 diplomats and campaigners are thronging the chilly halls to hammer out the final text of a treaty banning cluster munitions. The United Kingdom is one of the lynchpin nations here, but they are clinging to their last cluster munitions and have thoroughly isolated themselves.
Cluster-munitions leave a deadly legacy for years because once dropped, they scatter hundreds of unguided bomblets randomly over a wide area - and then many fail to explode. In effect, they turn into landmines. And just as campaigners spurred a global ban on anti-personnel landmines in the wake of the CCW's inability to do so, the aim today is to ban cluster-bombs that kill civilians around the world every week of every year.
The United States and Israel, as well as dozens of other countries that are makers, sellers or stockpilers of weapons, are in the cross hairs of an international movement to abolish cluster bombs.
According to the police report, Kamaleddine Mohammad was gathering wood near the Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camp outside Tyre in Lebanon last month when he stepped on an unexploded submunition from a cluster bomb. Mohammad was yet another victim of Israel's cluster bombing campaign at the end of last summer's war between Israel and Hizbollah. He is one of the tens of thousands of civilians killed or injured by cluster munitions in war zones throughout the world in recent decades.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Jakarta today is intended to showcase Indonesia's transition to democracy. It follows the Bush Administration's controversial decision to reestablish full relations with the Indonesian Military (TNI). That move opens the door to renewed U.S. assistance, but pumping aid to an unreformed Indonesian military would serve only to encourage further rights abuses and undermine civilian governance.