Cluster Bomb use

Why in the News?

The US has decided to send cluster munitions or cluster bombs as a part of the new military aid package to Ukraine for its war efforts against Russia.

Cluster bombs:

1. Cluster munitions or cluster bombs are weapons that

• Releases multiple explosive submunitions/ bomblets into the air.
• Explodes as soon as they hit the ground and kills and injures people.
• The vast majority of cluster munitions are free-falling i.e., they are not individually guided towards a target.
• High dud rate i.e., the bomblets may not blow up instantly and can remain dormant for years, causing grave threat to civilian population including women and children for a long time.

2. Cluster bombs have a notorious history
   1. Second World War
   2. Wars of US involved in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
   3. Russia has been using cluster bombs ever since the start of Russia-Ukraine war targeting cities like Kharkiv resulting in deaths of hundreds of civilian population and property.
3. Cluster Munition Monitor (CMM) reports that around 56,000-86,000 people have died in cluster-munition affected countries since 1960s.

Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), 2008:

1. Article 1 of CCM: Bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs.
2. Mandates the member countries to destroy the existing stockpile of cluster munitions in their possessions.
3. Member countries are legally bound to establish a ‘Victim Assistance Programme’ to provide rehabilitation support to cluster bomb victims in their jurisdiction.
4. 112 countries have acceded to the CCM including many NATO countries like Canada, Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
5. But important countries like the US, Russia, China, Israel and India have not signed the CCM.

Will CCM be applicable to non-member states of Ukraine and Russia?

The notion that non-Signatories of CCM are not bound by the law banning cluster bombs is incorrect.

1. The Customary International Law (CIL) is applicable to all countries
   1. The CIL norm is that use of force must be discriminate i.e., a distinction has to be made between civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives.
   2. The CIL norm is codified in Article 51A of Additional protocol to the Geneva conventions to which both Russia and Ukraine are members.
   3. The indiscriminate usage of cluster bombs is against the objectives mentioned in CIL and Geneva conventions; hence it is illegal.
2. International humanitarian law of Proportionality.
   1. Codified in Article 5 (5) of Additional protocol of Geneva conventions
   2. This prohibits the excessive use of force which causes incidental damage to the civilian population or civilian objects when compared to the military benefits anticipated.
   3. The use of cluster bombs is indiscriminate, harming civilians and amounts to disproportionate use of force, its use becomes illegal.
3. US is not in violation of any international in spite of supplying cluster bombs to Ukraine,
   1. US cluster bombs are unlike Russian made ones because of its low dud rate and hence prospects of unexploded bomblets are bleak.
   2. Thus, the use of force can be termed as proportionate and discriminate.

However, US is engaged in an irresponsible act by supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine.

The use of Cluster munitions has to be banned universally as envisaged by the Convention on Cluster Munitions with the support of all UN-member countries by acceding to the CCM for eradication of the use of cluster bombs.

Link: Stop the fence-sitting in cluster bomb use - The Hindu