Human Rights Watch And Cluster Bomb

EDM number 525 in 2003-04, proposed by Harry Cohen on 02/02/2004.

That this House commends Human Rights Watch for its recent report, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq; notes that it says that the widespread use of cluster munitions, especially by the United States and United Kingdom ground forces, caused at least hundreds of civilians casualties; further notes that US Central Command used 10,782 cluster munitions which could contain at least 1.8 million submunitions and that the United Kingdom used 70 air-launched and 2,100 ground-launched cluster munitions containing 113,190 submunitions and that these were repeatedly used in attacks on Iraqi positions in residential neighbourhoods; also notes that the Coalition left behind many tens of thousands of cluster munition duds, i.e. submunitions that did not explode on impact and which then became de facto landmines and that an average failure rate of five per cent. would leave about 90,000 duds; and accepts the recommendation of Human Rights Watch that there should be no use of air-or-ground-delivered cluster munitions until the humanitarian problem associated with these weapons are resolved, that their use should be suspended until the dud rate can be reduced dramatically, that they should not be used in or near populated areas and that stocks of older, highly unreliable and unguided cluster bombs should not be used under any circumstances.

This motion has been signed by a total of 50 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.