Cluster Munitions

Cluster munitions is a very controversial topic and from what I have gathered, it is very difficult to determine exactly what is truth and what is myth. I've had conversations with attorneys who are bringing a products liability suit against the manufacture of these cluster munitions and from these conversations, I have heard time and time again that these munitions are not dangerous because of their use but because they were manufactured to be that way. The dud rate (rate of unexploded remnants) was unacceptably high and as such, manufacturers should be held liable for the secondary harm caused by the bomblets. According to these plaintiffs, the dud rate was further exacerbated by the fact that the governments were misusing the munitions by dropping them in populated areas (i.e. the war in Lebanon) despite the fact that they were designed to be used in non-urban conflict areas. I think that a products liability suit used to deal with a borderline rules of war violation is an interesting strategy. Although it might give parties a way to get the issue into court, it doesn't address the underlying IHL violations and does little to condemn the use of cluster munitions itself. All it does is condemn the use of these particular munitions.
However, I have also sat in on meetings of DoD attorneys who claim that the real issue when it comes to the indiscriminate nature of the cluster munitions is not with the dud rate but the fact that using cluster munitions to bomb an area was more discriminate and more conservative then carpet bombing with conventional bombs. They argue that because of the small, more concentrated nature of each bomblet, armed forces could more accurately (and NOT less accurately) target particular areas then they would be able to with larger more conventional bombs.

I don't which of these arguments I agree with, but I find both sides of the argument to be very interesting.

Handicapped International Press Release

U.S. CCW Delegation