Appeal from the Cluster Munition Coalition to the Lima Conference on Cluster Munitions

22 May 2007

The Cluster Munition Coalition appeals to governments to take urgent and concrete action at the Lima Conference on Cluster Munitions to build on the progress made in Oslo in February and to develop the substantive elements of a new treaty that will end future civilian deaths and injuries and reduce the suffering of those whose lives have already been shattered.

The participants in this forum have come from 25 countries to express our support for the Lima Conference on Cluster Munitions and our expectations of the governments meeting here this week.

We are pleased that the momentum of this new process is growing fast – 3 months after the Oslo Conference we are joined by almost 30 more countries, including the most affected country in the world, Lao PDR. All of these countries should endorse the Oslo Declaration as their first step in this process.

The CMC has circulated a series of key principles that the new treaty on cluster munitions must include. The first is a prohibition on cluster munitions, as they are defined. This definition must be a comprehensive one that addresses the immediate and after effects that these weapons have consistently had on civilian populations. It must not allow for unsubstantiated so-called technical fixes.

The CMC believes the approach set out in the draft discussion text for the Lima Conference is the right approach because it combines a prohibition with comprehensive obligations to protect civilians from the effects of cluster munitions through victim assistance, clearance, risk education and stockpile destruction.

Being here in Lima, in a region that has not yet been affected, reminds us of the preventive element of this endeavour. By stemming proliferation of cluster munitions, we have an opportunity to prevent the emergence of a new problem on the scale of landmines. Use by non-state actors makes this all the more urgent.

Global grass roots movements to promote peace, security and human rights have helped bring about the ban on antipersonnel landmines, the International Criminal Court, the protocol banning the use of child soldiers and, most recently, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities. This process offers a chance to repeat these successes through a new treaty on cluster munitions. In so doing governments and civil society will not only be protecting civilians, we will be reinforcing democracy.

The message from the Cluster Munition Coalition and from civil society around the world remains clear: cluster munitions go against everything we stand for as humanitarian and human rights organisations; the consistent harm caused by these indiscriminate weapons is unacceptable and urgently requires a prohibition on their use, production, trade, and stockpiling.