Cluster Bombs: Why the US needs to take a cue from Latin America

A recent convention attempting to ban cluster bomb munitions was held in Costa Rica this last week. The convention was made up by a large contingent of Latin American countries who are pushing to make Central and South America the first cluster bomb free zone. This is a strongly welcomed development as I've taken up a personal vendetta against the bomb and those that use, sell, and stockpile it. Mankind simply must extricate himself from the use of these crude devices that are calculated to so inhumanely torture.

To those that are unaware, cluster bombs are projectiles containing a thousand or so bomblets that scatter in mid-descent over a wide area much similar to a shotgun. Anywhere between ten to twenty-five percent of these bomblets fail to detonate, thus waiting to release a deadly explosion accompanied by shrapnel capable of piercing tank armour up to seven inches deep! These unexploded bomblets present a grave danger to refugees seeking to re-inhabit their previously war ravaged lands. In such situations these unexploded bomblets are incapable of discriminating between a soldiers fighting in the battlefield today, and a civilian herding his sheep months later.

This danger of unexploded cluster bomb bomblets constitutes both moral and legal dilemmas, and despite a formal ban, they violate the principle purpose of two international treaties: the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Cluster bombs are incapable of discriminating between combatants and civilians. This incapability is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention which outlaws indiscriminate attacks. Specifically, the treaty outlaws attacks that "employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited" and thus "strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction" (Geneva Convention Protocol I, article 51.4.C).

In addition to violating the Geneva Convention, cluster bombs also violate the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The CCW outlaws the use of "any mine, booby trap or other device which is designed or of nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" (CCW, Protocol 2, Article 3.3). A cluster bomb's bomblets that fail to detonate are no different than the CCW's definition of landmines. Furthermore, these munitions certainly fall under the CCW's ban of "devices that cause superfluous injury."

Despite these palpable violations of both the Geneva Convention and the CCW, cluster bombs are still used, stockpiled, and sold by a many states, the US and Europe being the primary culprits. It’s sad that full fledged and long established democracies, often argued as the peaceful polities, have to take cues on how to engage in humane warfare. Hopefully, the Costa Rican convention will lead to a cluster bomb free zone (Brazil is holding out), providing an example towards which the US and Europe can aspire.