IRISH PEOPLE can be proud of the Government's involvement in the major international treaty banning the use of cluster weapons to be signed in Dublin today.
Following 10 days of intense negotiations here, and over a year of international activity on the issue with several other sponsoring states, agreement has been reached on this text to outlaw the production, use, transfer and stockpiling of these weapons. They are especially insidious, scattering tiny bomblets over a battlefield which can kill and maim civilians for years afterwards. Despite its loopholes this treaty is a decisive step towards eliminating them.
The treaty shows that a determined group of relatively small states, working closely with a coalition of non- governmental organisations, can make a real difference in international affairs. Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Austria and the Vatican have been the principal state actors on achieving a cluster bomb treaty. Starting in February last year, in the wake of worldwide outrage over Israel's prolific use of the weapons on the last day of its 2006 war in Lebanon, they organised several negotiating sessions involving over 100 states, culminating in Dublin.
Conspicuously absent were the United States, China, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan, the main producers and deployers of cluster bombs. The United Kingdom, like most other large European states, has been involved; but until the closing stages the UK resisted a blanket ban. It is to the credit of prime minister Gordon Brown that he decided this week to make the treaty as strong as possible, parting company with the US on this issue. As a result the treaty has much greater credibility than otherwise would have been the case. It will be far more difficult to use cluster bombs in future without major negative political and ethical consequences.
Difficult - but not impossible. Two loopholes in the treaty could perpetuate existing armouries and allow them to be renewed if international vigilance and concern is relaxed. A new generation of smart cluster weapons, larger than the present ones and timed to self-destruct, fall outside the treaty's purview. And an inter-operability agreement will enable signatory states - including Ireland - to work with non-signatory armed forces which hold stockpiles of the weapons. This means they will continue to be deployed in many conflict zones and trouble spots.
Nevertheless the moral and political force of this treaty should not be underestimated. It bears comparison with the Ottawa Treaty which outlawed landmines in 1997. The Dublin Treaty on cluster weapons will represent and express a worldwide revulsion against their military use which any state contemplating that will now need to factor in to its military decisions. Such a raising of awareness and consciousness plays an essential role in international affairs, providing a model of how governments and voluntary organisations can cooperate effectively. This is welcome indeed in a period when all too often the invulnerability of power is taken for granted.