JOHANNESBURG, 17 February 2010 (IRIN): The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which seeks to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of these weapons, has been ratified (statsretligt undertegnet) and will enter into force on 1 August 2010.
The convention agreed in December 2008 in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, requires ratification by 30 countries to become binding in international law; on 16 February 2010, legislation enacted by Burkina Faso and Moldova fulfilled this stipulation.
So far 104 countries have signed and are in various stages of adopting the convention – also known as the Oslo Process – in their legislation (Danmark skrev under 12. februar 2010, red.).
– The rapid pace of reaching 30 ratifications – only 15 months – reflects the strong global commitment to get rid of these weapons urgently, said Steve Goose, director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch and co-chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), an international civil society umbrella body representing 350 CMC organisations in about 90 countries, in a statement.
Cluster munitions, or cluster bombs, are indiscriminate weapons dropped from the air or de-ployed by ground-based delivery systems that often distribute hundreds of bomblets, or submunitions, that can cover an area the size of several football fields.
Many of the bomblets fail to explode – by design or flaw – and remain a threat to lives and livelihoods many years after the conflict has ended.
Conor Fortune, spokesman for Stop Cluster Munitions, a member of the CMC, told IRIN that the “very rapid ratification [of the convention was] because of the co-operation between states in favour of the ban, civil society, the UN, among others”.
He said the Mine Ban Treaty (MBT) served as a useful model.
MBT aimed to create a universal acceptance of the ban on antipersonnel mines, destruction of all stockpiles of these weapons, clear all mined areas, and provide assistance to all landmine victims; it came into force in 1999 and in its first 10 years was acceded to by about 80 percent of the worlds countries (56 states).
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