Ban Cluster Bombs and Constructivism

The 2008 Convention on Cluster Bomb Munitions was established to end the suffering and casualties caused by cluster bombs in parts of the world.

Firstly, cluster bombs or cluster munitions, are large weapons deployed from the air which release hundreds of smaller sub-munitions. This weapon is unreliable and also indiscriminate. It does not distinguish its victims, whether civilians or military targets, and in many cases children and women are the casualties. The danger to this weapon also lies with its failure to explode on impact; therefore unexploded bombs are left on the ground posing grave dangers to civilians. In many cases, children mistake it for toys and end up triggering the weapon causing more fatalities.
The use of cluster bombs included by the US in 2003 in Iraq, NATO in 1999 in Kosovo and as far back as the Vietnam War by the US on Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. But it was the cluster bombing of Lebanon by Israel in 2006 unacceptable high level of civilian casualties that provided the catalyst for a global campaigning to ban cluster bombs. Therefore in what became known as the Oslo Process, forty-six countries agreed to push for a global treaty banning cluster bombs, a move activist’s hope will force the superpowers that oppose the effort, namely the U.S, China and Russia to abandon the weapons.

Constructivism plays an important part in the global movement to ban cluster munitions, which by focusing on the humanitarian impact and unacceptable level of harm caused towards civilians, picked on the moral conscience of concerned states. Norway, New Zealand, Ireland, and Switzerland to name a few, worked together to produce a Treaty that would ban forever the use cluster munitions.
Banking on the success of the Mine Ban Treaty, and to raise the awareness of the harm caused by cluster munitions, the Cluster Munition Coalition an international civil society campaign worked together to eradicate cluster munitions, including the prevention of further casualties and to put an end to the suffering they cause.   Activists and campaigners worked with the champion states to provide funding to encourage states to attend the meetings to witness first-hand the negative effects of cluster bombs on survivors. The states form a constructivist approach when they accept that by applying for funds, they will not use their own limited resources, and they also recognise that the champion states need their presence to lend legitimacy to the Oslo process. This creates an obligation for states to attend the meetings.

At these international and regional meetings, delegates are able to witness and listen to the testimony of survivors on the effects of cluster bombs, with many suffering various forms of disability such as missing limbs, blindness, which serve as a reminder of the consequences of human evil. Another key issue is how to entice neutral states who say it is not a priority issue for them.  For example, Fiji, like other Pacific island states does not produce or use cluster bombs. Campaigners had to construct a relevant entry point such as appealing to the security of peacekeepers. Fiji contributes troops to the UN peacekeeping missions and deploys peace-keepers to the Middle East where cluster bombs are likely to be used as in Syria. Thus Fiji recognizes that it has an obligation to support the ban of cluster for the security of its peace-keepers in war torn countries.     

States and civil society are able to construct their responses. For example, an Afghan father who lost his son to a cluster bomb incident, addressed delegates on his experience following the loss of his son. The use of the father is a constructivist appeal to the predominantly male delegates, to have empathy as a fellow male, thus appealing both to a man and a father. The loss of a child is meant to appeal to the loss of innocent lives on the deliberate use of such destructive weapons. Civil society is able to use the loss of innocent children to appeal to the delegates to support the ban on cluster bombs.

The leadership role of the champion states in the Oslo process is acknowledged in the process towards banning cluster bombs, and for being great model citizens by contributing towards world peace.

We therefore see how states and civil society are able to use constructivism in order to mobilize support for the ban on cluster munitions.  The Convention entered into force on 1 August 2010 and is nowlegally binding.