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• Pressure on the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs has refocused attention on the legal and moral use of such weaponry.
• Washington suspended sales of cluster bombs to the Saudis in 2016 following mounting concern over the toll they were taking on civilian lives.
• But the U.S. is still holding out from joining more than 120 nations that have signed an international ban on cluster bombs.
• Furthermore, should the U.S. provide Ukraine with cluster bombs, it could weaken the argument against others doing likewise.

Effective or indiscrimate?

• And now they are being deployed in Ukraine.
• If deployed responsibly, they can be an effective military tool.
• Indeed, the Department of Defense argued that in some limited circumstances cluster bombs can be less destructive to civilians.
• Many remain on the ground, unexploded until they are later disturbed – and that increases the chances of civilians’ being maimed or killed.

Cluster bombs under international law

• As such, there is no legal reason that Ukraine or Russia cannot deploy cluster bombs in the current conflict – as both have done since the invasion of February 2022.
• But there are laws that set out how cluster bombs can be used, and how they must not.
• The relevant part of international humanitarian law here is 1977’s Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which both Ukraine and Russia have ratified.
• Rather, it is how the weapons are used that determines whether the attack constitutes an indiscriminate one and hence a crime under international law.

More than an ‘optical’ risk?

• And the experience of cluster bomb use in Syria and Yemen shows that it can be difficult to hold governments to account.
• Which is why Ukraine’s request for U.S. cluster munitions has led to concerns.
• But still, there was and is presently no clear-cut legal obligation for the U.S. to stop supplying other nations with cluster bombs.
• But nonetheless, providing Ukraine with cluster weapons could serve to destigmatize them and runs counter to international efforts to end their use.
• And that, in turn, could encourage – or excuse – their use by other states that may be less responsible.

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  SAN FRANCISCO, April 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- D2iQ , the leading Kubernetes management platform provider, today announced the newest version of its D2iQ Kubernetes Platform (DKP).
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