Iii. The 2008 Cluster Munitions Convention: Stepping Outside the CCW Framework (Again)

Abstract

he is not particularly interested in the trial being conducted speedily. On the contrary, Karadžić wants the trial to go on for as long as possible, which is only natural, since his trial is probably the last time in his life that he will be in the spotlight. In any event, all is not done with the matter of Karadžić's self-representation, and the impact it might have on the conduct of a dignified and efficient trial. E. Conclusion The arrest of Karadžić indicates willingness on the part of the new Serbian coalition government (including, bizarrely enough, Milošević's own former party) to complete its cooperation with the ICTY and arrest the two remaining fugitives. The Government suffered less political fallout due to the arrest than could have been expected, possibly in no small part due to the rather inglorious circumstances in which the would-be national hero of the Serbian people was apprehended. Indeed, the main nationalist opposition party, led by Š ešelj, recently split in half. Therefore, some degree of optimism that Ratko Mladić, the alleged architect of Srebrenica, will soon find himself in the dock, would not be unwarranted. As for Karadžić, the ICTY Prosecutor and judges certainly have an enormous task ahead of them. It can only be hoped that they have learned from the mistakes of the Milošević 20 and Š ešelj 21 trials and that these will not be repeated. MARKO MILANOVIĆ * III. THE 2008 CLUSTER MUNITIONS CONVENTION: STEPPING OUTSIDE THE CCW FRAMEWORK (AGAIN) A. Introduction On 30 May 2008 some 107 States meeting in Dublin adopted the final treaty text of the latest addition to the family of humanitarian laws: the Cluster Munitions Convention (CCM). The Convention has been hailed as 'the most important weapons treaty for more than a decade' 1 that, according to a number of British former military commanders, will 'strengthen our [British forces] ability to use force effectively in the modern world'. 2 Not everyone attended the Dublin negotiations though, and key user States are

Norm emergence as agenda diffusion: Failure and success in the regulation of cluster munitions

“…Governments (and parliaments) of three countries (Austria, Belgium and Norway) not only endorsed the NGO campaign and adopted an international ban of CM as a policy goal, but also enacted national legislation prohibiting the use, possession, production, transfer and stockpiling of CM (Bolton and Nash, 2010: 177). The governments of Canada, the UK and the US did not go that far, but they at least gave up certain types of CM (Hulme, 2009: 221). Through its public campaign, the CMC made the issue visible and politicised it; through their institutional and diplomatic activities, the like-minded governments both provided the formal structures and created support for norm negotiations among their peers (Bolton and Nash, 2010: 178).…”

“…While, in principle, the effect of the latter approach might have been the same as that of the former, it was not so in practice. First, Article 2(2)(c), while not ‘completely shut[ting] [the door] to smart cluster weapons’ (Hulme, 2009: 223), sets a high threshold for exclusion by formulating five cumulative criteria that weapons need to meet if they are not to be considered CM (they must contain less than 10 sub-munitions, each of which must weigh more than four kilograms, be capable of engaging a single target and be equipped with self-destruction and self-deactivating mechanisms). Second, in contrast to the exclusion of smart CM, this ‘narrow exclusion’ (Human Rights Watch, 2010: 135) meant that the treaty covered most of the CM that the respective governments had hoped to retain by pushing for a more limited definition (Petrova, 2016: 393).…”