Cluster Bombs

EDM number 424 in 2001-02, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 15/11/2001.

That this House considers that cluster bombs are vicious, inhumane, weapons of war because each bomb contains a large number of bomblets capable of killing people at a range of 30 metres and 10 per cent. of bomblets fail to explode on impact, remaining live and liable to be activated if touched, thus constituting a permanent danger to combatants and non-combatants, particularly children, and so the collateral damage to civilians becomes indiscriminate one the immediate bombing is over, making their use of dubious legality under the 1977 Protocol to the Geneva Convention of 1949; therefore calls on Her Majesty's Government to renounce their use in Afghanistan or any other peacekeeping operation in which Britain is involved and to remember that in Kosovo, where half the bombs dropped by the RAF were cluster bombs, civilian deaths and casualties are still going on; further urges that the Ottawa Treaty on anti-personnel landmines should be amended to include a ban on the use of cluster bombs and a provision that those countries which have used them before should be responsible for clearance of the unexploded bomblets as recommended by the International Committee of the Red Cross; and supports the further recommendation of the ICRC that the use of cluster bombs should be suspended until an international agreement on their use and clearance has been achieved.

This motion has been signed by a total of 65 MPs.