A NEW international treaty came into force yesterday that will require countries to clear up unexploded munitions used in combat, which continue to cause thousands of casualties each year.

Although the agreement was criticised as weak by some groups, there were hopes that it would give new impetus to the campaign this week at arms control talks in Geneva for an international ban on the use of cluster bombs, which has had strong support from the UN.

The International Committee for the Red Cross hailed yesterday’s treaty, known as the Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War, as the first of its kind to require countries to clean up unexploded munitions, which they said threatened “civilians, peacekeepers and humanitarian workers” long after fighting was over.

But some human rights groups issued a warning that the treaty was vaguely worded and had been ratified by only 26 countries, none of them heavily engaged in the world’s main military operations.

“The protocol should reinforce the need to clean up the deadly leftovers of war,” said Steve Goose, the head of Human Rights Watch’s arms division. “But the success of the protocol will depend on thorough implementation by governments.”

The cluster bomb, which is kept in the arsenals of countries like America, Israel, Britain and Russia, releases hundreds of fist-size bomblets across a wide area. They are designed to attack concentrations of troops or armour. But many of the explosives fail to detonate and can kill and maim civilians years later.

Israel is estimated to have dropped more than one million cluster bombs on southern Lebanon this summer. Since then 23 people have been killed and scores injured.

Ronald Bettauer, head of the US delegation to the weapons review conference in Geneva, said that the time was not right to start discussing a ban on cluster munitions.

“Our military and the military of many other countries believe they need these munitions,” he said. “They feel the cluster munitions in some situations will be more humane than blanketing the area with high explosives.”

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