Red Cross says ban on cluster bombs urgent

By Robert Evans

The Swiss-based humanitarian body's senior arms specialist, Peter Herby, told a news conference the ICRC hoped the text of a treaty would be approved at a conference in Dublin in May and be signed by many countries by the end of the year.

Herby discounted arguments from some producer states that the weapons -- which can spread hundreds of bomblets over a target area -- can be made to self-destruct or otherwise rendered harmless after conflicts in which they have been used.

"We are not proposing any exclusions (from a treaty), as some states have," said Herby.

A similar process has led to an international ban on landmines which major powers have still not signed up to.

An international group called Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) says nearly 100 countries favour a ban, although some like Germany, France, Italy and Japan want a transitional period first.

They say that cluster munitions should be handled in the CCW -- talks on updating a 1981 pact on especially dangerous conventional weapons which will hold a series of "expert discussions" on the issue this year.

Campaigners say hundreds of Lebanese civilians were killed or maimed during and after the conflict because of what they call indiscriminate use of the weapon. Israel denies that it was used irresponsibly.