The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
November 17, 2011

U.S. Accused of Weakening International Cluster Ban 
----------------------------------------------------



The Obama administration is being accused of weakening an international
convention banning cluster bombs at a key international meeting in
Geneva. Member states of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
have gathered to finalize a legally binding-protocol. The U.S. has
played a key role in the talks despite refusing to join the convention,
reportedly pushing a proposal that would allow the use of all cluster
munitions made after 1980. Steve Goose of the Cluster Munitions
Coalition slammed the U.S. stance.

Steve Goose: "We have governments here, this week and next week,
negotiating a new international treaty on cluster munitions, with much
lower standards. This has never happened before in international
humanitarian law, where you have a treaty that has been agreed by the
majority of the world’s nations with very high standards and then
states get together and try and negotiate an alternative treat with very
low standards. We find this outrageous.”



.