U.S. proposal bombs

During a recent visit to the UN headquarters in New York. - no no, not on diplomatic business this time, just for pleasure - I saw an exhibition on land mines. There is a UN Convention banning the use of these things because of the devastating effect they have on civilians who come across them after a conflict, especially children. A display of artificial limbs varying in sophistication from wooden stumps to jointed, roughly leg-shaped prostheses, all child-sized, helps to make the point. 158 states are party to the treaty banning these weapons, and it is awaiting ratification in a further two. 36 UN members have chosen not to have anything to do with it.

Poignant legs

There is also a UN Convention on cluster munitions, which108 countries have signed and 63 ratified. The reasons for banning cluster bombs are similar to those for banning land mines. Cluster munitions contain multiple smaller bombs (bomblets) which often fail to detonate and litter war-torn areas with explosive, shrapnel-filled booby-traps for unwitting innocent victims to stumble across years later.

The UK’s presence on the list of countries with consciences who have signed the cluster munitions treaty was insisted on by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2010, despite fierce lobbying from the USA. The Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free has not signed the conventions on either land mines or cluster munitions, presumably because it still thinks they are a swell idea.

Ban everything!

Perhaps we should not judge a nation by the company it keeps. But you may wish nevertheless to consider the fact that this puts the USA in a minority grouping of such enlightened defenders of freedom and human rights as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Burma and Bahrain. 

Key: Blue countries have signed the cluster bomb treaty, purple ones have  ratified it and grey ones should be invaded until all weapons of mass destruction have been found and neutralised.

Up until Thursday, the USA had been promoting an alternative protocol at the UN which would deal with cluster munitions as part of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Their idea was to allow the use of some cluster munitions which are slightly less horrifically accident-prone than the very worst, 98% of which only harm civilians. Why anyone should need a UN protocol to dissuade them from using weapons which are so terrible is beyond me, but the USA seems to think this is vital, saying effectively, “Yeah, cluster bombs are pretty bad I guess. We kind of want to be able to use them and sell them though, so how about we make a deal: Ban the old ones to stop us from using them - because we have no self-control and otherwise we will definitely accidentally kill and maim thousands of children - but let me still use and produce the ones that aren’t quite so bad, because… “ and here is the best bit, “…otherwise I will kill even more innocent civilians.”

That’s right! One of the reasons given by the USA for defending the legitimate use of cluster bombs is that they are less harmful to civilians than some other approaches. If enemies occupy a hospital, for instance, they argue that that it is better to use cluster bombs and potentially fill the place with unexploded ordnance than to destroy the whole building with a missile attack. This is clearly insane.

Cluster bomblets

What is the situation here in the UK? The last Labour government had at best an inconsistent approach to this kind of disarmament. While Brown was nobly committing the UK to decommissioning cluster munitions, Ed Miliband’s evil twin David was allowing a loophole to be kept open so that the USA could continue to stockpile them in this country. The current coalition government, on the other hand, was last week in danger of completely undermining the ban by supporting the USA’s alternative protocol, until it became obvious that to do so would look really, really bad. Fortunately, the American proposal failed on 25^th November, and we still have a distinction between countries which have banned cluster bombs, and countries that produce, stockpile and use the dreadful things.

Keep your hands off this... it's mine! (Sorry)

So what next? Well, the USA, out of the goodness of its heart, is going to continue with its plans to limit use of cluster bombs only to the good kind by 2018, even though all the other countries were so nasty that they didn’t agree to the American proposal. How generous! How charitable! That means that they are not only going to fly in the face of the majority of international opinion by continuing to use cluster bombs indefinitely, but also that they can carry on using and flogging the worst kind of cluster bombs for another six years! Oh America, you are too good to us.