A decade after the signing of a treaty to eliminate landmines, representatives from more than 100 countries are meeting in Dublin this week to ban an equally indiscriminate killer of innocent people — the cluster bomb.
There are billions of cluster bomblets stockpiled, ready for use by 75 countries. These bombs are responsible for killing or maiming countless civilians as their mini-bombs explode months — or even years — after they are dropped. And here’s another chilling fact: one in four victims of these bombs are children. The British government has widely and loudly proclaimed its leadership in the movement to ban these bombs. But as the Dublin conference unfolds, many of us seriously question that “leadership.”
It is clear that Britain is following the US — which has no intention of signing up — as it works behind the scenes to greatly weaken the treaty. But rather than continue to follow America’s position, the UK should heed the words of its nine former defense chiefs and military commanders who have called upon the Brown government to ban clusters.
One US official recently bragged that the US had “spoken with” more than 110 countries about this treaty. The US has also threatened that it will not remove its cluster munitions stockpiled in countries that do join the treaty — even though in the past it did remove landmines stockpiled in Mine Ban treaty countries. And the US State Department is said to have warned that British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan could face prosecution if they call in artillery or airstrike support from US planes — all of which carry cluster bombs.
In military jargon, such exaggeration could be called “firing for effect.” See if you can terrorize others into doing what you want. A cluster-bomb ban will not mean the end of joint military operations nor make British soldiers automatically liable. Joint military operations with Britain continue despite the fact that the US is not party to the Mine Ban treaty. At least seven other international treaties have similar obligations on prohibiting assistance in use of a banned weapon by a country bound by the treaty.
Along with trying to protect its own cluster munitions, the UK is also trying to remove completely a key provision that prohibits governments from “assisting, inducing, or encouraging” states that do not join the treaty with any act that is prohibited by the treaty.
This would allow solders of countries that are part of the treaty to participate in the planning and execution of joint operations with the US where cluster bombs are used. How can the British government say with a straight face it is banning these munitions while at the same time vigorously promoting language allowing British soldiers to plan and execute operations where, in effect, they would be using US cluster bombs? How can it say it is merely trying to protect British troops and is not really trying to appease the US?
Likewise, a cluster ban treaty will not undermine NATO. In fact, a recently completed internal NATO study found that joint military operations would not be impacted if NATO members sign a cluster munitions treaty with the prohibition on assistance intact.
If the US wants to try to weaken the future cluster munition ban treaty, it should do its own dirty work and not hide behind its allies.
If Britain wishes to continue to paint itself as a leader in the cluster ban movement, it should start listening to its own former military commanders who call for nothing less than a total ban — now.
Jody Williams was the founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. She is also the founding chair of the Nobel Women’s Initiative.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this