Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will do most of my presentation in French.
First, I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for the opportunity to take the floor. I represent the Cluster Munition Coalition. We are made up of non-governmental organizations that operate in some 100 countries, working to eradicate cluster munitions. Our task is to have all states join the Convention on Cluster Munitions and fully comply with its provisions.
We are the sister campaign of the international campaign to ban landmines, which has worked closely with Canada to adopt the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines. This campaign won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to eliminate those mines.
I come from Montreal, but I have been working for a number of years for the Cluster Munition Coalition and the treaty to ban anti-personnel land mines. I currently work in Geneva.
I would like to tell you about my friend Mr. Thi, whom I met in Dublin at the treaty negotiations. He is a farmer from Vietnam. In 1977, he was blown up by a cluster munition while digging up his field. Half of his arm was amputated. Over the next few decades, he has continued to work in the same field where he kept finding explosive submunitions just like the one that blew off his arm several years earlier. On a daily basis, he lives in terror because of those cluster munitions. That is not something we can relate to, where we are. This daily terror certainly does not compare to our farmers' experience in the Prairies. However, in a number of countries affected by cluster munitions, this is the daily reality, a reality that can be fully avoided through the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
The Cluster Munition Coalition thanks Canada for engaging in the ratification process of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. I would also like to say that I agree with all the comments our colleagues from Handicap International Canada made a few minutes ago.
In recent years, cluster munitions have been used only by regimes such as the armies of Bashar al-Assad or Moammar Gadhafi. It has been more than 10 years since the United States have used cluster munitions on a large scale. Since 2007, the few times cluster munitions have been used, the state that had seemingly used them refused to confirm it, because the use of cluster munitions is not well regarded at all.
As a result of a recent resolution by the United Nations General Assembly, the number of states that condemn the use of cluster munitions by Syria has gone up to 131. More or less two-thirds of all the countries in the world are expressing their disgust for those weapons. When Moammar Gadhafi used cluster munitions, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described that use as disturbing. When Bashar al-Assad used cluster munitions, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice added the use of cluster munitions to the list of atrocities under the Syrian regime.
For a number of years, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has had a policy against the use of cluster munitions. Those weapons were not used during the NATO operations in Libya in 2011.
Clearly, those weapons are unacceptable. This is where we are really at now. We are talking about a large group of countries and an international instrument that has been negotiated down to the last detail. It is the community of nations that raises its voice when those weapons are used by people like Moammar Gadhafi and Bashar al-Assad.
So many voices are being raised that almost no one has the audacity to use those weapons. That is called stigma. Every time a government rejects those weapons, the stigma becomes increasingly stronger. As a result, those weapons will be used less and less.
Canada's bill worries us because some of its provisions clearly seem to go counter to the stigma. We feel that some aspects fly in the face of the goal and purpose of the convention.
Given the time constraints, I will not go over clause 11 in great detail right now. Our concerns are fully outlined in our written brief. We feel that clause 11 of the bill is clearly a violation of the convention.
First of all, article 1 of the convention lists the prohibitions. For instance, it is prohibited to use, produce and stockpile cluster munitions. It is also prohibited to assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in those activities. That is the fundamental prohibition in the convention.
Article 21 of the convention deals with the relations with the States that are not members of the convention. Among other things, article 21 states that the military personnel of state parties may engage in military cooperation and operations with States not party to the convention that might engage in prohibited activities. Article 21 of the convention is not an exception to the prohibition on assistance in article 1 of the convention. In fact, article 21 clarifies that joint operations are allowed and that neither the state parties nor their armed forces are liable for the prohibited activities undertaken by non-party states during joint operations. It therefore does not reduce the scope of the prohibitions under article 1, which apply at all times.
So far, 40 state parties to the convention have clearly expressed their opinion on the matter; 38 of those states explicitly said that article 1 is the basis of the convention, that the prohibition is essential, and that article 21 is not an exception and therefore it cannot allow anyone to assist someone who might engage in an activity prohibited by the convention. Many of those countries are NATO members, including Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Portugal and Slovenia, to name a few. All those NATO members will continue to participate in possibly joint operations without letting their armed forces ever use cluster munitions.
Since Canada started drafting its bill, there has been some criticism in other parts of the world. I will mention a few. I will say this in English, because the original comments made by the states were in English.
Still in the context of Canada's draft legislation, Norway publicly noted that article 1 of the convention referred to “the absolute prohibition on any use of all cluster munitions”. It also noted that all countries had a responsibility to ensure that their implementation measures fully complied with the provisions set out in the convention.
Austria said publicly:
Austria attaches great importance to the obligation of all States Parties to fully bring into effect the international norms of the Convention and not to allow for any loopholes to exist in their national legal frameworks. In Austria’s view, exceptions in national legislation with respect to interoperability clauses risk to run counter to the object and purpose of the Convention.
The ICRC, coming out of its usual reserve, said that “The ICRC is increasingly concerned about the scope of the exceptions allowed in national legislation...”.
The Holy See said that “After showing strong resolve in Dublin when we adopted this Treaty, all of us, we should continue to show domestically the same will to implement all our obligations in good faith.”
The United Nations, via its coordination group on mine action, said that “the United Nations shares the concern over possible inconsistencies contained in national legislation that has either been adopted or is under consideration that may be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Convention...”.
New Zealand invited states to consider important issues, such as aiding and abetting, when drafting national legislation.