US pushing UN to lift ban on cluster bombs, say campaigners

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Source: The Guardian

The use of cluster bombs will be given backing under plans being drawn up at an international treaty conference, according to opponents of the weapons which maim and kill civilians, notably children, long after they have been dropped.

The bombs are banned under the 2008 convention on cluster munitions, which was adopted by the UK and more than 100 other countries. But the US refused to sign and is pressing for a protocol to be added to the UN convention on certain conventional weapons (CCW) to provide legal cover for the use of cluster munitions.

The US is being supported by other cluster bomb manufacturers – including Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan – at negotiations due to end in Geneva on Friday. The move is also backed by a number of signatories to the 2008 convention, including France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Australia, conference observers said.

Amnesty International, Oxfam and Article 36, a group which co-ordinates opposition to such weapons systems, said humanitarian concerns were being ignored at the UN-sponsored talks and that they will on Wednesday call on Britain to resist US attempts to sanction what they described as a "licence to kill" with cluster bombs.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/22/us-pushing-un-cluster-bombs