The deal is done on the treaty banning the use of cluster bombs - but can it work? asks TOM CLONAN.
IN A historic achievement for the Government, 111 countries will today formally agree an international treaty banning the use, development or stockpiling of cluster bombs. The treaty, which will be signed into law in Oslo in December, contains over 20 articles dealing with agreed definitions of cluster munitions, prohibitions on the use of cluster munitions internationally and, crucially, issues around military co-operation with non-signatories to the treaty.
Most notably, the United States, China, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan are not part of the deal. Between them, the military of these nations possess an estimated six billion about-to-be banned cluster munitions in their weapons inventories.
There is hope, however, that the Irish-brokered treaty will have the same moral and political force as the 1997 Ottawa treaty prohibiting the use of landmines which has proven successful in stigmatising their use - even among states such as the US which did not sign up to the original treaty. Technological developments may also assist in rendering indiscriminate mass-produced cluster munitions obsolete.
Sources within the US military maintain that the definitions of cluster munitions contained in Article 2 of the Dublin treaty do not apply to the United States military's designs for their next generation of 21st century "smart", "dedicated sub-munitions".
According to Article 2 of the treaty, "smart" bombs with fewer than 10 sub-munitions or "bomblets" - each weighing more than 4kg and fitted with guidance systems and time-delayed self-destruct mechanisms - fall outside of the treaty definition of "cluster munitions". Therefore, signatories to the treaty and non-signatories such as the US, Russian, Chinese and Israeli military can continue to develop, stockpile and ultimately trade in and use new-generation, smaller, smarter and so-called "safer", "dedicated" sub-munition weapon systems - once they conform to the design and legal parameters set out by the treaty.
Article 21 contains a liberal clause which allows signatories to the treaty to "engage in military co-operation and operations with states not party to this convention that might engage in the use of" cluster munitions. This article was included to allow signatories such as Britain and other Nato member states to continue their military alliances and coalition forces with the United States in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Interestingly, this clause will also allow Irish troops to remain as force partners with the US military in the Nato-led Kfor mission in Kosovo and the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The clause will allow 276 Irish soldiers to continue serving alongside their US counterparts in Kosovo.
Whilst Irish and US troops in Kosovo have air support in the form of US Apache helicopters armed with cluster munitions, the deployment of such munitions in Kosovo in the immediate future is deemed "unlikely".
This is not the case, however, for Ireland's US military partners in Afghanistan. At present, the Defence Forces have seven personnel deployed to Afghanistan with the Nato-led ISAF. The Irish troops are based at ISAF headquarters in Kabul. The ISAF force, to which Ireland is a contributing nation, comprises about 35,000 Nato-led troops deployed throughout Afghanistan. Ireland's force partners in ISAF include the US military.
In response to inquiries from The Irish Times, the US State Department confirmed that irrespective of today's treaty developments, the US military in Kosovo and Afghanistan - including those at ISAF - "reserve the right to at least consider the use of cluster munitions as part of its worldwide obligations whether under a Nato flag or a UN flag on peacekeeping or peace enforcement operations". Richard Kidd, director of the US state department's office of weapons removal and abatement - which specialises in US policy issues regarding the use of cluster munitions - stated that "cluster munitions are integral to every US military combat unit, whether that be air force, marine corps, army or navy. In terms of military utility, they have a well recognised military application. This is particularly well recognised now by al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan who, as a consequence, no longer concentrate in large groups in the open."
In clarifying this statement, a Nato spokesman in Brussels - with specific responsibility for Nato's ISAF operations in Afghanistan - said that there is no ISAF policy prohibiting the use of cluster munitions in Afghanistan. He added that whilst cluster munitions have not been used by ISAF to date, "strictly speaking, that possibility could not be ruled out in the future". He also confirmed that Irish troops in Kabul along with their multinational force partners at ISAF had recourse to "US air support" that would retain cluster munitions in its inventory for the foreseeable future.
Despite the reiteration of these policy positions by the US, developments in Dublin this week - along with the continued deployment of Irish soldiers in coalition with US troops in Kosovo and Afghanistan - should bring strong moral and ethical pressure to bear on the United States to discontinue the stockpiling or possible use of indiscriminate cluster munitions on Nato operations - sooner rather than later. At the launch of the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions last week, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin, stated that it would be "inconceivable that cluster munitions would be relevant to the types of missions on which our [Irish] soldiers go".
By securing today's treaty, the Government will have copper-fastened this position and ensured that the use of indiscriminate cluster munitions by our force partners on overseas missions will rapidly become politically untenable.