111 Nations Agree to Landmark Ban on Cluster Bombs

In a major victory, more than 110 nations agreed on May 28 in Dublin to a strong international treaty banning cluster munitions. In February 2007, Human Rights Watch helped launch a global campaign to prohibit the use of cluster bombs. We coordinated international treaty negotiation efforts and defeated attempts to weaken the treaty text. Human Rights Watch also successfully countered US efforts to pressure its allies to undermine the ban. As a result, in a decisive policy shift, Britain and other NATO allies endorsed the cluster ban treaty. Cluster munitions contain "bomblets" that are scattered from planes or by artillery shells and detonate like landmines. Thousands of unsuspecting civilians, many of them children, are killed or maimed by dormant cluster bombs each year. Like the ban against landmines, the cluster munitions ban represents a momentous advancement in the protection of people affected by conflict.