You can ban cluster bombs in 2008!

2008 will see the conclusion of a new international treaty prohibiting the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. A last round of discussions will take place in February followed by final treaty negotiations which will take place in Dublin, Ireland, in May.

After negotiations, governments will be invited to sign the new treaty later in the year.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown made clear his commitment to this ban process in his Lord Mayors Speech in November 2007. However, concerns remain that the UK may try to negotiate loopholes for weapons that will cause further civilian harm in the future.

UK Ministers continue to defend the retention of M85 submunitions, despite rigorous analysis showing failure rates of these munitions in actual combat being significantly higher than has been claimed on the basis of testing. The UK is also seeking to exclude from prohibition its rocket-fired cluster munitions because they each contain less that 10 submunitions. However, 76 such rockets can be mounted on a single helicopter - allowing the delivery of hundreds of submunitions in total.

If adopted in a treaty, such loopholes would weaken the protection provided to civilian populations and give arms manufacturers easy ways to work around the ban. We need your help to stop this from happening.

What you can do:

Sign petitions

• Collect signatures to Get Them Milibanned

Write to your MP

• Write to your MP with the guidance of this sample letter

Increase awareness in your community

• Come to the Global Day of Action to Ban Cluster Bombs on 19 April 2008 (details to be confirmed).
• Organise a screening of our film Unacceptable Harm- 40 years of cluster munitions or display one of our photo exhibitions. Please contact Landmine Action for more details.

With your support, the next 12 months presents an important opportunity to have a huge impact on the development of international humanitarian law to protect civilians from cluster bombs.