A Global Overview of Explosive Submunitions

In December 2001 a Group of Governmental Experts was mandated by the Second Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) to examine the types and factors of wepons that produce ERW. Weapons that deliver submunitions deserve special consideration in this process because of their ability to rapidly deliver large quantities of submunitions over wide areas and the demonstrated failure rates of submunitions. Perhaps the most significant ERW problem is the hazard presented by unexploded submunitions.