An organisation of Labour Party members and trade unionists working for peace, socialism and disarmament, and to keep these issues to the forefront of Labour's policies.
UN Convention - CCM
The UK, US and other Governments are considering supporting a new protocol to the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) to partially lift the ban on their manufacture and use.
British MP Martin Caton has tabled the following Early Day Motion (EDM 2381): Sponsors of the motion include LAP supporting parliamentarians Jeremy Corbyn MP and John McDonnell MP.
"That this House recalls the historic agreement reached in Dublin on 28 May 2008 creating the international convention prohibiting the use, production, stockpiling and transfer
of all cluster munitions, which has now been signed by 111 States; celebrates the role of the UK in achieving the Convention on Cluster Municians (CCM) at that time; commends the important work
the UK has undertaken to promote universal adherence to the CCM; recognises that the international norm being established by the CCM provides a powerful disincentive against the use of
cluster munitions even by non-signatories; acknowledges that these weapons have kiled and maimed many non-combatants in and after conflicts around the world; further recognises that some nations holding large numbers of cluster weapons still have not joined the CCM; is alarmed at the attempt by the US and others to use the United Nations Convention on certain Conventional Weapons to negotiate a new
protocol on cluster municians that would ban some older weapons but allow, indefinitely, some of the worst offenders including the BLU 97 that caused such carnage in Serbia and Kosova in 1999 and 2000,
in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and in Iraq in 2003; and urges the British Government to use its influence to resist this new protocol and encourage other nations to endorse the CCM."
TAKE ACTION - Please ask your UK Member of Parliament to sign the EDM, and your MEP (or other elected representative outside of the EU) to resist any dilution to the CCM protocol.