Sign up to receive SPP updates:
RSS feed.  |
ABOUT THE SPP | BACKGROUNDERS | MEDIA | VIDEO/AUDIO |
SPP resources SPP Summit - New Orleans SPP Summit - Montebello Teach-in |
May 23, 2008 Jody Williams, the founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, writes in the Globe and Mail today that, "At the current 12-day conference to negotiate an international treaty banning cluster munitions, diplomats and observers alike are wondering what has happened to Canada's independence (because Canada) now appears to be doing the dirty work for the United States to weaken the cluster munitions treaty (now being negotiated in Dublin)." A proposed cluster bomb ban would prohibit those countries that sign it from helping those that don't -- i.e., the United States, which uses them in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. officials are trying to scare countries away from the proposed ban by claiming their troops would face prosecution for fighting alongside armies that use cluster bombs. Williams says this isn't true. "Such a treaty will not mean the end of joint military operations nor make Canadian soldiers automatically liable in the event the United States were to deploy weapons," she says. But "proposed Canadian language would not only seriously weaken the provision prohibiting governments from 'assisting, inducing or encouraging' states outside the treaty with any prohibited act... it would permit soldiers of countries that are part of the treaty to participate in the planning and execution of joint operations with the United States where cluster bombs are used." According to an article in the Ottawa Citizen last weekend, “The U.S., which has more than one billion cluster bomblets stockpiled, is boycotting the Dublin meeting, preferring instead to operate through the Geneva-based Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which is widely viewed in the anti-cluster movement as ineffective.” That article also highlighted inter-operability, or joint military operations, as one of Canada’s main concerns. “Under the current draft of the treaty, signatory nations would be banned from assisting other nations that use cluster bombs,” claims the Citizen article. “Some nations want that condition removed altogether, but others say the treaty would be too weak without it.” Mines Action Canada is leading the push to make sure Canada signs the cluster bomb treaty. They are following the Dublin convention on their website, which includes a video update from days 2 and 3.
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
 |
NACC
Workers
Water
Energy
Security & civil liberties
Safety & regulations
Transportation corridors
