The Government of Canada is hammering down on its stance against the use of cluster munitions following the U.S. decision to send the controversial weapon to Ukraine.
I thought they were illegal under international law.
The article said that 100 countries have signed a treaty to ban them but the US is not one of those countries. This CBC article talks a bit about why countries have banned them. It’s a bomb that sprays smaller bombs randomly over a large area. The main issue is these smaller bombs might not detonate on impact and will only explode later on once the war is long over with.
Canada, Europe, Japan, and most of Latin America and Africa are signatories, while almost the whole of the Middle East and Eurasia + Brazil, Russia, India, China are not.
The article said that 100 countries have signed a treaty to ban them but the US is not one of those countries. This CBC article talks a bit about why countries have banned them. It’s a bomb that sprays smaller bombs randomly over a large area. The main issue is these smaller bombs might not detonate on impact and will only explode later on once the war is long over with.
Yeah, they are a similar post war problem as landmines which also have a treaty that the US has not signed.
It’s interesting to look at the map of signatories.
Canada, Europe, Japan, and most of Latin America and Africa are signatories, while almost the whole of the Middle East and Eurasia + Brazil, Russia, India, China are not.