CLUSTER MUNITIONS

That this House recalls the historic agreement reached in Dublin on 28 May 2008 creating the international convention prohibiting the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of all cluster munitions, which has now been signed by 111 states; celebrates the role of the UK in achieving the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) at that time; commends the important work the UK has undertaken to promote universal adherence to the CCM; recognises that the international norm being established by the CCM provides a powerful disincentive against the use of cluster munitions even by non-signatories; acknowledges that these weapons have killed and maimed many non-combatants in and after conflicts around the world; further recognises that some nations holding large numbers of cluster weapons still have not joined the CCM; is alarmed at the attempt by the US and others to use the United Nations Convention on certain Conventional Weapons to negotiate a new protocol on cluster munitions that would ban some older weapons but allow, indefinitely, some of the worst offenders including the BLU 97 that caused such carnage in Serbia and Kosovo in 1999 and 2000, in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and in Iraq in 2003; andurges the British Government to use its influence to resist this new protocol and encourage other nations to endorse the CCM.