Bern, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland on Wednesday will join more than 100 other countries in Oslo, Norway to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a convention which the Swiss successfully lobbied to have approved by consensus when national states met 30 May 2008 in Dublin, Ireland. The Geneva-based ICRC has been active in getting the convention to this point.

The convention has been approved by 111 countries, which now must ratify it. It bans the use of cluster munitions, which the ICRC says have been used for decades, although only in a limited number of conflicts, but where they have killed and injured large numbers of civilians.

States that sign the convention must destroy their stocks of the weapons within eight years after it enters into force.

“It will be the most significant humanitarian and disarmament treaty of the decade,” notes The International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The convention, according to the Campaign group, “contains the strongest ever provisions for victim assistance in international law.” The date of 3 December chosen for signing is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and the anniversary of the signing of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The signing marks the start of the treaty’s implementation worldwide.

Related story: “Small, perfectly, deadly: the art of landmines.” Geneva, with the Swiss government, supports a series of cultural events to raise awareness about efforts to end the destruction from antipersonnel mines.

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