UNIDIR press conference 25 November 2020

Good morning, everybody.

I think we'll make a start on this global launch of the Cluster Munition Monitor 2020.

My name is John Borrie and I'm the officer in charge at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research or UNIDIR.

And I'm very pleased to be here virtually, that is today at an event in support of an important humanitarian disarmament treaty that makes a practical difference to life on the ground for people around the world.

And for many years, Unidare has hosted the annual launches of the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor reports, often referred to simply as the Monitor.

So I'm delighted to have this opportunity to introduce the latest Monitors report by the Cluster Munition Coalition.

And this Monitor report fulfils a key niche in humanitarian and disarmament research.

It serves as an important resource for the international community by reporting on all aspects of the cluster munition issue.

Moreover, then Monitor is the only initiative providing a comprehensive overview of developments in this area.

Now, 2020 marks an important anniversary, the 10 year anniversary of the entry into force of the conventional cluster munitions.

So it's an appropriate moment to review highlights from the past decade as well as the past year, and to take stock of factors and forces that have contributed to the Convention's successes and also the growing stigma against these weapons, but also the remaining challenges.

In other words, the monitor aims to provide a comprehensive review of developments.

So this monitor is being launched on the opening day of the first part of the second review conference of the conventional cluster munitions.

And that's that event is taking place virtually from today until the 27th of November, during which participating States parties and others will assess the state of the global norm, progress toward universal adherence, implementation of the convention.

And it's going to set the direction for the next 5 years.

Now, of course, we're in an altered context due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions and unanticipated challenges it's brought about.

Despite these challenges, it's great to be able to present this report today.

So now that I've introduced things, I'll hand you over to three key members of the monitor team.

They'll present its key findings and of course, welcome your questions.

We have Mr Steve Goose, Director of Human Rights Watch is Arms Division and a long standing colleague and friend.

He will serve, as he's been serving as the band policy coordinator on the Monitor and he's going to cover findings related to band policy and related issues.

Then we've got Mr Lauren Percy, the Monitor's Impact Team Leader and the overall editor of the Monitor, and he'll focus on cluster munition related casualties in 2019 and victim assistance related issues.

And last but by no means least, we have Miss Ruth Bottomley, the Monitor's Impact Team Editor, who'll present findings related to contamination risk, education and clearance.

And after each has spoken briefly, we'll open up for questions one by one from the media, and we'll finish this event within the hour.

So with that, I'm going to go over to Steve.

Steve, it must be the middle of the night where you are in the US, so good on you for for staying up or getting up super early, but all yours.

You're on mute, Steve.

There we go.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, John.

It is the middle of the night here, but I'm pleased to, to do it and pleased to join you.

Thanks to Unidear for hosting once again, the tradition to have Unidear host these openings.

But it's a special pleasure to have you sitting in the chair.

Those who don't know, John was very involved in the, in the development of the Convention on cluster munitions.

And indeed, he, he literally wrote the book about the, the, the birth of the convention.

So pleasure to have you joining us today.

This convention has been a, a huge success 10 years in it.

It's it's clear that it has been a success and will continue to be a success in the future.

It's made a real difference in eradicating the weapon, a real difference in saving lives and limbs and livelihoods.

We'll go through a lot of statistics today that give proof of that fact, but it's, it's important to start from the beginning, I think by understanding that this is a, this is a, a good news story.

That being said, there are still disturbing developments and an awful lot of work to do to bring this, this exercise to fruition.

I'll talk about what we call generally ban issues, meaning looking at things like use, production, stockpiling, trade of the weapon, as well as other requirements of the convention like transparency, reporting and national implementation measures.

And I'll touch on all of these just just briefly before taking your questions.

After the other presentations.

The convention now has 110 states parties.

[Other language spoken]

It should be higher.

States had set a goal for themselves by now of getting 130 states parties.

So 110 is falling short of that, but it's still very impressive.

And what is noticable also is the degree to which countries outside of the convention, those who've not yet signed on the dotted line, are obeying the basic precepts of the convention.

We've had two new states parties over the course of the past year in 2020.

If we turn then and look at at the use issues, there have been no instances or allegations of use by any state party or any signatory, indeed no allegations even of of use or production or trade over the course of the past 10 years.

The compliance with the convention has been very, very impressive.

Outside of the convention, there continue to be sporadic incidents of the use of cluster munitions.

In the past 10 years, we have documented use in about 8 states who were not party to the treaty, mostly isolated incidents of use, with the exception of Syria where there has been continuous use since 2012.

We've documented more than 686 cluster munition attacks in Syria since July of 2012.

This is the the real black spot on the issue of cluster munitions around the world.

The degree to which Syria with great assistance from Russia has been a regular user of cluster munitions in the past year or so, the the most immediate reporting period for the cluster munition monitor.

We've seen use in Libya in 2019 as well as Syria in 2019.

And then in 2020, we've seen use in Syria as well, most recently in Nagorno Karabakh by both Armenia and Azerbaijan just just last month, widely condemned use by both of those countries.

We look at stockpile destruction.

This has been a huge success story for the convention.

More than 1.5 million cluster munitions containing more than 178,000,000 submunitions 178,000,000 submunitions have been destroyed by States parties.

[Other language spoken]

This represents about 99% of the combined total of stocks held by States parties.

There are still a small number of States parties that are destroying their stockpiles, but it's it's down to the final remnants.

Unfortunately, this year there are two States parties who have asked for an extension on their stockpile destruction deadline.

Both Bulgaria and Peru were not able to get it done in time, the first time that that has happened.

There's also some open questions about two other stockpilers, potential stockpilers.

1 is South Africa, which has not been destroying mines now for almost, almost the the full 10 years of the existence of the convention.

And then Guinea Bissau, which at one point in time said it had a stockpile and then said it didn't have a stockpile.

And its stockpile destruction deadline has passed.

And it's still unclear because it has not made a definitive determination about whether or not it has stocks.

So it is potentially in violation of the convention by not having asked for an extension request and not having destroyed its stocks on time, if indeed it does have the stocks.

Looking at production, there are 18 countries that have stopped production of cluster munitions, some of them amongst the biggest producers in the past, including the United Kingdom and France.

But there are still 16 countries outside of the convention that produce cluster munitions.

And disturbingly, this past year we've discovered that China and Russia are actively researching and developing new types of cluster munitions, which we had not seen in recent years.

So that's a bit of bad news for us.

And then just to wrap up with a, a word or two about the transparency reporting.

States are required each year to turn in a transparency report detailing their implementation efforts and the compliance rate with that annual report is only about 60%.

That is, there are, there are are are nearly half the states parties who are not turning in those reports on a regular basis.

Similarly, there's a requirement to take national implementation measures.

The CMC, the cluster munition coalition believes that that should be freestanding national legislation and only 32 states parties have enacted such legislation.

So there are still compliance and and implementation issues that have to be dealt with.

But overall the the the record for the convention is quite outstanding.

I'll pass it on from there, John.

Thanks very much, Steve.

A lot of very sobering, sobering facts and figures there, particularly the attacks in Syria 686 that's absolutely astounding since 2012.

And of course, then Igona Karabakh attacks being of great concern too.

Over to you, Lauren.

[Other language spoken]

I'd like to talk about the impact of classmations, specifically regarding casualties and the situation with casualties of cluster nations, both during attacks, the direct use of cluster missions and the unexploded cluster submissions.

The remnants that act basically as anti personnel landmines due to their sensitivity.

So the monitor in collecting data on the casualties of classifications for this period since 2010 has recorded over 4000 casualties.

[Other language spoken]

Of course, this number is probably much greater in reality, particularly due to what Steve mentioned, which is the ongoing use of classifications in Syria.

And Syria actually accounts for over 80% of the classmation casualties recorded in this in this decade.

81% on average over the years since 2012 when classmation use and casualties in Syria began to be recorded.

And this was true also for 2019, although thankfully the number of casualties has decreased significantly since being recorded almost 1000 in 2016, mostly due to use in Syria.

In 2019, the Monitor recorded 286 casualties, 232 of which were recorded in Syria and mostly due to use overall for all time.

There's estimated to be over 50,000 class mission casualties in the world and in 34 countries.

That number has been growing since the adoption of the Convention, not only because of this use, but also because of better recording and surveys of also the victims and their needs from past use, including in some of the most affected countries such as Laos, Laos, followed by Syria and then Iraq have the highest numbers of recorded casualties in the monitor.

So one of the things that to keep in mind is that the success of the convention is such that apart from this use in Syria, the number of casualties in most affected countries from the remnants of class nations has actually been decreasing significantly over this period.

From hundreds of casualties recorded in some countries, particularly Laos, the most effective down to this year in Laos, just five casualties recorded, a sign of great success in terms of preventing casualties globally.

Also clearance and risk education and the resources available.

Marion Lodda, who's on this call, who follows the resources for my action globally, has reported on the resources to these countries That is not specifically part of of this presentation, and she's also the final editor for the report.

I just also mentioned that victim assistance to the casualties of class nations is an obligation under this convention, and that has set a new precedent and has established a possibility for great benefits to not only the victims but other people affected by conflict in those countries.

There are about 14 of the state's parties which have classification of victims that have that obligation.

[Other language spoken]

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Lauren.

I think that's really comprehensive and helpful.

And I'm going to go now to Ruth Bottomley.

Over to you, Ruth.

[Other language spoken]

And so I'm going to talk you through contamination and then risk education and then clearance.

So we see that we still have 26 countries contaminated by cluster munition remnants.

There's ten of these, the state parties, 13 non signatories and three other areas.

Of the 10 state parties with clearance obligations, massive cluster munition contamination still remains in one state party, which of course is live PDR.

We think that there's contamination in 14 of the 17 provinces.

Currently, survey is ongoing in six of the most heavily contaminated provinces and it's expected that they will have a complete picture of the confirmed hazardous areas in those six provinces by June 2022.

So I think that just gives you a sort of idea of just how much contamination there is within that country.

Iraq is also heavily contaminated with around 178 kilometres square of of cluster munition contamination and then restate parties have below 100 between 10 and 99 kilometres square and then five with less than 10 kilometres square.

Also with state states not party to the treaty.

Vietnam is another country that has massive contamination and also Cambodia and again both of those as with Lauer the result of the US bombing during the Vietnam War.

As Steve mentioned, new use since entry into force of the convention has resulted in further contamination and six non signatories.

[Other language spoken]

And in addition, in non signatory Ukraine, it's become contaminated for the first time since the convention entered into force.

So just to move on to risk education again, this is the first time that the monitor has reported on risk education fully since 2008.

And we have seen in the past year a sort of increased focus and attention on risk education, which is a positive step.

The we're hoping that the the action plan that will be approved at this second review conference for the convention will include a substantial section on risk education and similar to that which is included in the Oslo action plan that was adopted by the state parties for the mainland Treaty last year.

So states report on risk education as part of their Article 7 transparency reports, but the the reporting is fairly inconsistent and despite most of the state parties who have obligations under this treaty, not many of them report fully.

Only 5 in fact, report detailed information on risk education efforts, so we hope very much that that will improve if the action plan contains a more substantial section on risk education.

However, there is some interesting risk education going on in the different State parties and most of them cluster munitions is dealt with as one type of contamination amongst others.

So for example, land mines and also improvised mines more and more.

But in state party Lao, it is the main form of risk education with a focus on the the risks created by cluster munitions.

And so that is very much focused on livelihood activities and people going into contaminated areas, cultivation, collection of forest products, hunting, fishing, those sorts of activities.

I think there's also a **** level of intentional risk taking.

And so often familiarity with with contamination means that people will move ordnance when they encounter it.

And so for example, and now you often see farmers having moved cluster munitions that they find to the side of their fields so that they can continue with farming.

And obviously children are a key risk group for cluster munitions because they often lack knowledge of the risks, but also because of the the shape and the size of of the munitions that they look very much like a small tennis ball, like a toy.

And so children often pick them up and play with them.

In terms of clearance, in 2019, approximately 82 kilometre square of contaminated land was cleared by state parties.

So this is an increase from 76 kilometres square that was cleared in 2018 and at least 96,000 submunitions were cleared and destroyed.

About 78% of all this clearance was undertaken in low PDR which cleared around 64 kilometres square of land.

And in the 10 years again since the the convention was signed, almost 560 kilometres square have been cleared, which is quite a significant achievement with over 450,000 sub munitions cleared and destroyed.

And again state party Lao has cleared the most amount of land, 80% of this of the total.

Chile which has been party to the convention for 10 years, has not yet conducted any clearance of cluster munitions.

It reported having prioritised the clearance of landmines over cluster munitions and this year actually announced that it had completed clearance of land mines.

But it's also this year requested an extension for its clearance deadlines cluster munitions.

So we hope to see some progress there in the next year.

6 state parties have formally reported completing clearance of contamination between 2010 and 2020.

We have no state party having reported clearance in 2019, but this year, 2020, both Croatia and Montenegro have declared fulfilment of their obligations.

The first extension request, the extension request for an extension of deadlines to complete clearance were submitted last year in 2019 with Germany and Lau requesting five year extensions to their deadlines.

And this year, 2020, we've seen three more with Bosnia, Chile and Lebanon submitting their extension requests and these will be considered at this review conference this week.

And so that's it for me, John.

Again, happy to take any questions anyone might have.

Thanks very much, Ruth.

And I think those are, you know, those are really important figures.

I mean, I've been to Lao myself, and I've been really struck there by the fact that the population is a young population.

They're on average in their early 20s.

And yet there are several pieces of unexploded ordnance for every woman, man and child in the country from a war that happened long before most of these people were alive.

So it's just such an incredible thing and and so good that they're undertaking, you know, these clearance efforts.

I think we should take some questions now and what I suggest is if you just want to use the raise hand function and then we can give you the floor from the media.

[Other language spoken]

I don't see any hands up at the moment, but I'm just looking at my list.

Do we have any questions?

[Other language spoken]

Christiane Ulrich, would you like to take the floor?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for taking my question.

I wonder whether you can talk a little bit about non signatory countries like China, Russia, the US.

Are you lobbying them?

Is there any movement that they might join or what is the state of play?

[Other language spoken]

Steve, would you like to take that one?

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, most of the states that have not yet joined the convention are living up to its provisions.

That is, you haven't seen the US or China or Russia using cluster munitions.

They do, however, continue to withhold the right to produce them.

They've not been transferring them, but they hold the right to produce them.

And as I say, just this past year, our research shows that Russia and China are developing new types of cluster munitions.

In theory, cluster munitions that would be safer types of weapons than the ones that exist today in the United States.

There was a rollback of its cluster munition policy under under the Trump administration where they announced that they would begin using even their more deadly, less reliable types of cluster munitions.

We expect that policy to be rolled back under a new Biden administration.

They've given us indications that that will be the case.

But overall, we see that the the norm against using anti against using cluster munitions is strong, needs to be stronger.

But even those countries who stayed away from the treaty formally or obeying the basic precepts.

Thanks very much, Steve, unless the unless Lauren or Ruth have anything to add, I'll go to Laurent Ciero.

Laurent, the floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

Could you elaborate a little bit on on the use the potential used by non state actors?

Because I assume in Syria, for instance, amidst all these different groups, there might be also some, some groups that use that, that type of, of weapons as well.

So could you, could you elaborate on, on, on, on, on that and, and, and for instance, in Syria?

[Other language spoken]

Maybe that one's for me.

Also, do I still have the mic?

You have the mic, Steve.

[Other language spoken]

Use by non state actors of cluster munitions is not as big a problem As for example the use of anti personnel land mines by non state groups by rebel groups.

That largely has to do with the delivery mechanisms.

Land mines easy, easy to use, easy to lay.

Whereas with cluster munitions you generally need artillery or aircraft or other more sophisticated delivery mechanisms in order to make use of them.

That being said, there has been used by non state armed groups around the world and most recently in Libya where the forces associated with General Keftar were using cluster munitions in and around the airport in Tripoli.

So it's it's something that we keep an eye on, but it's not as bad a problem as with landmines.

Thanks very much, Steve.

I don't see any other questions from the media in my list.

I'm just going to give people a few seconds just to in case they have any further questions.

I'd just like to add, I mean from my perspective as somebody who has followed the work of the ICBLCMC and the Monitor project over many years.

I've been in working in this area for 25 years now and for much of that time I've been watching the work and the landmine and custom munition and explosive remnants of war areas.

And I mean, hats off to you guys that real testament to the to the campaigns.

You've really been doing fantastic work over this entire period.

You get on with it quietly.

It's a massive task and it's often forgotten what great work that you do and it's real democracy and action.

So there are a lot of good stories to be told, I think, in terms of the achievements of these conventions.

So, you know, thank you once again for everything.

I don't see any more questions on my list.

So I think this is probably a good time to end, particularly as it's the middle of the night for Steve and you probably want to get some shut eye.

But before we do, I just want to ask if if our speakers have any final comments before we before we sign off maybe no Ruth, no Lauren, no Steve.

Do you have anything to add or should we should we finish up?

[Other language spoken]

Well, look, thank you everybody for attending today.

Of course, the CMCICBL have put out a press release.

You can find that as well as data on the report.

Maybe there is there a link to that.

Is it on your website?

Could you just, can anyone remember the link for your for your website guys?

So the media can go there if they want to?

Marion Scott, Marion can tell us the floor is yours.

Marion, we can unmute too.

[Other language spoken]

Hi, everyone.

Yeah, just I'm going to do some small promotion there.

The report is available online at www.the-monitor.org.

You can have a direct link to the report on the homepage.

So everything should be quite easy and straightforward to find.

You have access to press release, major findings, the different chapters, country profiles, maps, and other infographics.

So I advise you to go there and have a look if you have any question, you can also send us e-mail.

We always, we are always happy to answer your question and provide additional information.

Or if you want to request specific interviews with anyone from the team, we'd be happy to arrange that.

And thanks so much, John, for hosting that today.

It's a real pleasure to be able to have that cooperation with Unidia for all the Monitor launches.

It's it's really great, in particular during COVID-19 times where we cannot, you know, I'll be in the same room.

So that's great that the partnership is still there.

So thanks everyone.

Thank you very much, Marian, and thank you to all of our speakers today from the Monitor project.

And thank you to you, the media for attending.

Also thanks to my colleague Aaron Buckley from from Unidear, who's worked behind the scenes on the communication side and of course the team who've been working on the technical side to bring this to event to us today.

So with that, we'll sign off and have a good day and a good second review conference.

[Other language spoken]