An earlier version of this testimony was submitted to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on November 25, 2013.
Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) appreciate this opportunity to submit a brief to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade regarding Bill C-6. The Bill seeks to allow Canada to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions by creating offenses for certain acts related to cluster munitions, as required by Article 9 of the convention. The First Review Conference of the convention will be held in September 2015 in Croatia, and we hope to see Canada participating there as a state party.
Human Rights Watch and IHRC thank Canada for its efforts to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions and to codify the categorical prohibitions on use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of the weapons and assistance with those activities. We wish, however, to call attention to certain provisions of the Bill that, as written, may fail to achieve, or even run counter to, the convention’s goals. We are especially concerned that the Bill:
- Permits assistance with cluster munition-related activities, including use, in the course of joint military operations and cooperation with states not party to the convention;
- Allows stockpiling of cluster munitions in and transit of them through Canadian territory;
- Provides only a limited ban on transfer of cluster munitions; and
- Fails explicitly to prohibit investment in the production of cluster munitions.
The Bill should be amended to prohibit categorically assistance, foreign stockpiling, transit, and investment and to broaden the definition of transfer. In addition, we call on Canada to fulfill its legal responsibility to implement the convention’s positive obligations, such as helping other states parties meet their obligations, submitting transparency reports, working to universalize the convention and promote its norms, notifying allies of its convention obligations, and discouraging the use of cluster munitions.
After providing background information on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, we present our comments on and recommendations for specific provisions of the Bill. Our submission concludes with an overview of our organizations and summary of our recommendations. The House of Commons made one change to the original Bill, and we urge the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to revise the Bill further in order to give strong effect to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and to bring Canada in line with its international commitments.
