Cluster munitions are typically anti-personnel weapons that eject dozens of explosive bomblets when detonated. Whether dropped from aircraft or fired from artillery, cluster bombs can scatter dozens or even hundreds of smaller explosives across an area the size of a football field.
Some bomblets fail to explode upon hitting the ground and, like landmines, can remain a deadly hazard to children, farmers and other civilians long after a conflict ends. Campaigners say cluster bombs should follow mustard gas and dum-dum bullets, high-velocity ammunition that often breaks apart upon impact, into a closed chapter of the history of warfare.
In December 2008, dozens of nations in Oslo signed a treaty banning cluster bombs. Non-signers included some of the world's biggest military powers, among them the United States, Russian and China. Many of the signatories expressed concern that the treaty fails to bind the countries most prone to military conflict.
Washington, Moscow and other non-signers, including India, Pakistan and most Middle Eastern states, say cluster bombs have legitimate military uses such as repelling advancing troop columns. But according to the group Handicap International, 98 percent of cluster-bomb victims are civilians, and 27 percent are children.
American officials defended their stance, saying that the United States has been developing advanced cluster munitions that were less likely to harm civilians and has provided nearly half of all global funding for the clearance of unexploded ordnance.
Norway, which began the drive to ban cluster bombs 18 months ago, was the first to sign, followed by Laos and Lebanon, both hard-hit by the weapons. Britain, formerly a major stockpiler of cluster munitions, also signed the treaty. The treaty’s unequivocal language is meant to be so strong that even countries refusing to sign it will be reluctant to deploy the weapons or trade them in commercially.
Despite the many signatures gathered in Oslo, most countries will still require some legislative process to ratify the treaty.
The convention will not enter into force until six months after the 30th nation has officially ratified it — a milestone that Norwegian organizers said could be achieved by 2009.
Cluster bombs can cause casualties long after the conflict in which they were deployed is over. In Laos, unexploded cluster munitions are a legacy of United States bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War. Old Russian-made bomblets still inflict casualties in Afghanistan and Chechnya. One of the last confirmed uses of cluster bombs was in 2006, when Israel fired large numbers of them into southern Lebanon during a monthlong conflict with the militant group Hezbollah. Afterward, United Nations peacekeepers reported unexploded munitions strewn across the landscape. Accidental detonations have killed or maimed hundreds of civilians since then, human rights workers said. Human rights groups have also alleged that Georgia and Russia used cluster munitions extensively in their war in August, although both countries have challenged this.
A NATO policy banning the use of cluster munitions in Afghanistan has been in place since 2007. Human Rights Watch estimates that hundreds of civilian casualties in the early stages of the Afghanistan War in 2001 were caused by cluster bombs dropped by the American Air Force.
The lessons of Afghanistan led to a change by the Air Force, and in the Iraq invasion in 2003 there were very few civilians killed by air-dropped clusters, though hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed in Iraq in 2003 by Army rocket clusters. According to Human Rights Watch, American forces have not used any cluster bombs since 2003.
