In a major victory, more than 110 nations agreed on May 28 in Dublin to a strong international treaty banning cluster munitions. In February 2007, Human Rights Watch helped launch a global campaign to prohibit the use of cluster bombs. We coordinated international treaty negotiation efforts and defeated attempts to weaken the treaty text. Human Rights Watch also successfully countered US efforts to pressure its allies to undermine the ban. As a result, in a decisive policy shift, Britain and other NATO allies endorsed the cluster ban treaty. Cluster munitions contain "bomblets" that are scattered from planes or by artillery shells and detonate like landmines. Thousands of unsuspecting civilians, many of them children, are killed or maimed by dormant cluster bombs each year. Like the ban against landmines, the cluster munitions ban represents a momentous advancement in the protection of people affected by conflict.
111 Nations Agree to Landmark Ban on Cluster Bombs
Your tax deductible gift can help stop human rights violations and save lives around the world.
Most Viewed
-
December 7, 2011
"How Come You Allow Little Girls to Get Married?"
-
June 14, 2018
Leave No Girl Behind in Africa
-
October 29, 2020
“I Sleep in My Own Deathbed”
-
May 9, 2024
Sudan: Ethnic Cleansing in West Darfur
-
June 9, 2015
Bangladesh: Girls Damaged by Child Marriage