A worldwide campaign to ban aerial cluster bombs is launched today by 80 organisations. Such bombs do not adequately discriminate between civilians and combatants, says the Cluster Munition Coalition.
Each can contain more than 200 bomblets that scatter widely; often the bomblets fail to explode, and turn into landmines which kill and maim long after war is over, the coalition argues.
Landmine Action, a British campaign, estimates that British and American aircraft and artillery used more than a million bomblets in Iraq.
The coalition, to be launched in The Hague, demands a ban on production or trade of cluster bombs "until humanitarian problems have been resolved". However, countries whose forces do drop them should accept responsibility for clearing them, and compensate victims.
The coalition is launched a week before what could be the last round of negotiations on adding a protocol covering the issue to the UN convention on conventional weapons. Landmine Action says the draft protocol contains loopholes - proposed requirement to hasten clearance would not apply if a government decided this was not "practicable". Phrases such as "as soon as feasible" weaken any obligation to prioritise clearance.