Antinuclear

Whilst long-standing and committed allies, Australia and the United States hold different positions on many matters relating to both arms control and humanitarian law. One recent normative development where the US and Australia’s views have diverged is the ban on cluster bombs, a weapon that has inside multiple – often hundreds – of small explosive sub-munitions or “bomblets” that are dispersed over an area the size of several football fields from either the air or ground. As a result, the final location of each bomblet is impossible to control for those deploying them, and so whom they maim or kill is both unknown and indiscriminate. Roughly 30 per cent of those deployed “fail” to explode on impact and so the unexploded bomblets become de facto landmines.

When the Convention on Cluster Munitions came into effect in August last year, the Gillard government was part of a chorus of NGOs and governments that saw “an end for all time” of the use of cluster munitions by prohibiting their production, use, stockpiling and transfer. At present a Bill sits with the Senate that will criminalise Australian deployment of the weapon under domestic law, thereby ratifying the international Convention.

With the formation of a US military base in Darwin, Gillard will effectively make use of certain “loopholes” in the Bill that arise from America’s non-signatory status to the Convention, and obfuscation of negotiations that are currently taking place for an additional arms control measure this week. Best estimates are that the US forces presently have a quarter of the world’s four billion in stockpiles across both its territory and existing overseas bases. Though the US last deployed cluster munitions during the Iraq War in 2003 despite it not being bound by the emerging norm.

In my view, there’s a fair degree of probability cluster munitions will be stockpiled in Darwin since there are known plans for the US to base a number of B-52 bombers historically used to deploy cluster bombs. It is already known that nuclear weapons will not be permitted onto Australian territory, but a number of the US’ naval fleet are nuclear-powered vessels which will be allowed…….

Specifically, the Bill provides a blanket exemption for the stockpiling and transit of cluster munitions on or in Australian territory by foreign forces. Where this is provided – Section 72.42 – severely contravenes Article 9 of the international Convention, which requires states parties to criminalise all prohibited activities (including stockpiling and transfer) on their territory, and to also refrain from assisting non-signatory states from doing so.

Both acts would result in Australia violating the spirit and intent of the Convention—to eliminate cluster munitions and the harm they cause for all time. And both are likely to occur as a result of the US base in Darwin.

Speaking at the Senate Committee hearing on cluster munitions in March this year, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam probed this military interoperability loopholes most expertly with then Lieutenant General David Hurley, then vice chief of the defence force:….

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/this-blog-harms/2011/11/17/theorising-darwin-us-may-stockpile-and-transit-cluster-munitions/