DUBLIN (AFP) — A landmark international convention banning cluster munitions was formally adopted by 111 countries here Friday, in a move organisers hope will stigmatise the lethal weapons as much as landmines.
Diplomats adopted the treaty without objection at the end of 12 days of robust negotiation at Croke Park stadium in the Irish capital.
The wide-ranging pact bans the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions. It also provides for helping victims and clearing contaminated areas within 10 years.
The treaty requires the destruction of stockpiles within eight years -- though it leaves the door open for future, more precise generations of cluster bombs that pose less harm to civilians.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed it as "a new international standard that will enhance the protection of civilians, strengthen human rights and improve prospects for development."
The convention is due to be signed in Oslo on December 2-3. It comes into force once 30 states have ratified it.
Politicians and campaigners described the adoption as hugely significant, despite the absence of the United States, China, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan -- all major cluster bomb stockpilers and producers.
But supporters said they hoped the treaty would pressure them to change track or shame them into not using cluster bombs.
"We all know that there are important states not present, but I am convinced that we will have succeeded in stigmatising any future use of cluster munitions," Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, whose country spearheaded the process, said in Oslo that "the door is open" to other states.
"We have created a framework which is now allowing countries to join and I hope to see that," he said.
Alongside him, British counterpart David Miliband, whose country dropped objections to the draft treaty on Thursday, breaking the deadlock in Dublin, added: "It's up to us to make sure it generates momentum in the process."
Slovenia, which currently holds the European Union presidency, said the new convention would have "a tremendous positive influence on the ground".
The United States has defended its non-attendance, saying it was "deeply concerned" about the humanitarian impact of cluster bombs and all weapons of war, despite "disagreements" about the best way forward.
Dropped from planes or fired from artillery, cluster bombs explode in mid-air, scattering bomblets, with many civilians having been killed or maimed in heavily-bombed countries like Laos, Vietnam and Afghanistan by their indiscriminate, wide area effect.
They also pose a lasting threat as many bomblets fail to explode on impact.
Norwegian Deputy Defence Minister Espen Barth Eide told AFP that countries wanted their military actions to be seen as legitimate, and compared the potential impact of the Dublin text to the 1997 Ottawa Treaty on landmines.
"With the landmine treaty, the US did not sign it but we don't really care because they behave as if they have signed it because they recognise they are morally outlawed," he said.
The Cluster Munition Coalition, an umbrella group of non-governmental organisations, said it would now be "politically impossible" for countries to use such weapons without a backlash.
It was "deeply disappointed" by an article on how countries may assist non-signatory states and said it would work to ensure it did not become a "loophole".
Steve Goose, from Human Rights Watch, said they would pressure signatories to clear non-signatories' stockpiles from their soil.
"This treaty will make the world a safer place for millions of people. Cluster munitions have been tossed on the ash heap of history," he said.
Afghan campaigner Soraj Ghulam Habib, who was 10 when his legs were blown off by a cluster bomb, said he now felt his suffering was not in vain.
"Victims need a lot of support and now work can be done to make victims self-reliant, not let them be like beggars on the street," the 17-year-old told AFP.
"I hope that cluster munitions will never again be used by any states."
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