U.S. Refuses to Join Majority of World in Abolishing Cluster Bombs

U.S. Tries but Fails to Scuttle Cluster Bomb Treaty
By Daniel Allen, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted August 4, 2008.

The U.S. government's claims, examined and annotated.

Well over half the world's governments agreed last week to "consign cluster munitions to the trash bin of history," in the words of the Cluster Munition Coalition, the civil society collective that delivered the treaty. Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, representatives of 110 governments completed negotiations on a new international treaty that bans the production, use, and export of all existing cluster munitions and commits them to destroy their stockpiles within eight years.

The U.S. government did not attend the negotiations, instead arm-twisting its allies to weaken the treaty. In the end, though, all other major NATO countries joined with the majority in agreeing to get rid of these weapons, which are designed to kill or maim every living thing in an area as large as two football fields. The vast majority of victims of cluster bombs have been civilians. Read On