MINISTER FOR Justice Dermot Ahern will formally sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Oslo tomorrow morning. Ireland and Norway will be the only two states that will also ratify the convention the same day.
Mr Ahern will be deputising for Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin. The convention was originally adopted by 107 states at a special diplomatic conference in Dublin last May.
About 100 states are expected to sign the convention when it opens for signature in the Norwegian capital. After he has signed the document at a ceremony in Oslo's City Hall, Mr Ahern will hand over the Instrument of Ratification to a representative of the UN Office of Legal Affairs.
Also taking part in the ceremony will be Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, who will open the proceedings, followed by a representative of the UN, ministers from two states affected by cluster munitions, Laos and Lebanon, and members of the "core group" that facilitated the drawing-up of the convention. Along with Ireland this group includes Austria, the Holy See, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway and Peru.
Mr Ahern will also hold bilateral meetings in Oslo with the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Dr Jakob Kellenberger, and the Australian foreign minister, Stephen Smith.
A spokesman for the Minister said Mr Ahern had been "a staunch advocate" of the cluster munitions ban in his former role as minister for foreign affairs, particularly following a visit he made to south Lebanon almost two years ago.
"During that visit he witnessed at first hand the effects of cluster bombs, both in how they had maimed young children and in how local farmers could not use their land because of the bomblets scattered across a vast terrain," the spokesman added.
Pax Christi Ireland has expressed its disappointment "that the Irish legislation on cluster munitions does not ban all types of cluster munitions and exempts hi-tech cluster munitions''.
It said Ireland should have banned "all cluster munitions for all time, irrespective of the outcome of the treaty. We have seen consistently even in the case of cluster munitions that today's hi-tech weapon are the dumb weapons of tomorrow."
