U.S. Statement on the Central Challenge of the CCW-GGE Negotiations
Delivered by Stephen Mathias, Head of Delegation to the Meetings of the Group
of Governmental Experts of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons
(CCW-GGE)

Geneva,
January 17, 2008

Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

Our discussion on legal aspects of the cluster munitions issue, including use, possible prohibitions, and scope of application, presents what I believe to be a good opportunity to explain U.S. views on the substance of the negotiations that we have now begun. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, the United States shares the humanitarian concerns associated with the use of cluster munitions and favors the negotiation of a legally binding protocol to the CCW to address the issue.  At the same time, cluster munitions are legitimate – and in some cases essential - weapons when employed properly and in accordance with existing international humanitarian law.  Commanders must have the ability to choose the appropriate weapon that will most effectively accomplish the mission and protect against collateral damage.  And in certain cases, a cluster munition will be the most appropriate choice from both a military utility and a humanitarian perspective.  We know, for example, that if the use of cluster munitions were banned or unreasonably restricted, certain missions would require our forces to fire many times more non-cluster projectiles to achieve the objectives, which in some situations could result in significantly greater collateral damage.
 
Therefore, from our perspective, the central challenge that these negotiations must tackle is how to address the humanitarian concerns about cluster munitions while also recognizing their legitimate military utility.  Given this, we have some initial thoughts about the best way to approach these negotiations that I would like to share at this time.

We have been listening very carefully to the statements made by other delegations this week and we are aware that a number of countries are attracted to an approach that would ban some class of cluster munitions.  While we will continue listening to all arguments, and working closely with as many delegations as possible, this approach has not been our focus for the following reasons:

• First—and let me be very clear about this point--there is no class of cluster munitions that we believe inherently causes unacceptable harm to civilians notwithstanding any precautions or safeguards associated with its use and actions that might be taken after its use.  We need to bear in mind that circumstances surrounding use and steps that might be taken after use vary widely, and are of critical importance.  We simply do not think it is possible to identify a class of cluster munitions that present unacceptable humanitarian concerns in every conceivable circumstance in which they might be used.  By the same token, there is no such thing as a class of cluster munitions that is so advanced that it would not present unacceptable humanitarian harm if used improperly – all weapons present humanitarian concerns if used improperly.

• Second, from a practical point of view we’d note that even if we were persuaded that it was possible or appropriate to identify some class of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable humanitarian harm in all possible settings, we believe it would be very difficult to achieve consensus within this room on exactly which cluster munitions those are.  This is particularly true if the approach centers on national choices of weapons systems.  In reality, these choices reflect very different defense needs.   

For these reasons, we believe our efforts should focus on consideration of provisions related to the use of cluster munitions.  This is where we believe that we can have the most direct impact on the humanitarian concerns that we are all trying to address.  Provisions on use could include identifying and clarifying the application of rules of international humanitarian law that apply to the use of cluster munitions.  We also think that it could be beneficial to identify good military practices that apply to the use of cluster munitions, including for example, protections and safeguards that can be implemented through the targeting process.  These issues could be contained in an annex or some other mechanism for identifying best practices.

Having said that, we also do share an interest in addressing reliability concerns in some manner. We believe these concerns might be addressed through prospective technical improvements that address humanitarian concerns.  As we have made clear in our technical presentations, we support and are actively engaged in the effort to find technical improvements that have humanitarian benefits.  We think this is an important area to explore in these negotiations. Some countries would like to impose binding technical requirements on cluster munitions to improve their reliability.  Others are concerned that such requirements are prohibitively expensive and would result in cluster munitions becoming a weapon only available to wealthy countries.  As demonstrated by our presentations this week, we believe that, over the long term, technical improvements offer a promising path toward lessening the humanitarian consequences of cluster munitions.  However, the cost and complexity of implementing such improvements suggest that it will not be possible to achieve consensus on requiring such improvements immediately or on a short-term basis. 
 
We are not suggesting in any way that provisions on use or technical improvements will be easy to negotiate.  We are aware that there are widely differing views among delegations in this room about how to address these issues.  Notwithstanding the difficulty of coming to agreement on these issues, we believe that these are the key areas that the GGE must address in order to have the best possible chance of addressing the humanitarian concerns associated with the use of cluster munitions.  The success of this process ultimately will be measured in those terms, not simply whether or not an agreement has been signed. 

A further area where we believe there may be some benefit in focusing our work is on issues related to transfers of cluster munitions.  We believe that this issue should be explored by the GGE after we have a sense of where we are going on the issues related to use and technical improvements.  Finally, the agreement we negotiate should complement Protocol V mechanisms for assistance and not replicate or replace them. 

We look forward to working with all other delegations on these important issues for the remainder of this week, as well as in future sessions of the GGE.