Convention on Cluster Munitions

UXO meeting focuses on survivors

{Photo: Natalie Bailey/IRIN: Sixty percent of the 300 people injured or killed by unexploded ordinances annually in Laos were undertaking normal activities at the time of their accident}

8 November 2010 (IRIN) - Delegates from more than 100 countries are discussing the Convention on Cluster Munitions at the First Meeting of States Parties on 9 November in Vientiane, Laos, the world’s most affected country.

UN agencies, civil society organizations and cluster bomb survivors will spend four days devising an action plan for states to realize their obligations under the convention, signed by 108 states, ratified by 43, and entered into force in August this year. The treaty bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs and, in Article 5, refers specifically to assisting the injured.

“Article [5] is very concrete; it says there has to be national plan, a focal point, a budget,” Hildegarde Vansintjan of Handicap International told IRIN. “We can make sure the survivors get what they need because they have to say what they need.”

Thomas Nash, coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), a global network of more than 350 civil society organizations, told IRIN that as the only legally binding requirement for a human rights-based approach to disarmament, the convention was unique. According to Nash, the contribution and role of the survivors in the negotiations was a vital element. {read rest}