A global treaty banning cluster bombs went into force on Sunday. The Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of the weapon, which is blamed for maiming and killing tens of thousands of civilians. The United States has shunned the treaty even though it is the world’s largest producer of cluster munitions with a stockpile of 800 million submunitions. Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch say he hopes support for the convention will help to stigmatize the use of the weapons even in countries who have not yet signed it.

Steve Goose: “We’re convinced that this convention will have a big impact, even on those states that have not yet joined. There are some big powers out there who’ve not yet joined up to the convention — the US, Russia and Israel — states that have used the weapon extensively in the past. We think that they are going to feel the power of this new convention. We think that the convention is stigmatizing the weapon all around the world and that states will be reluctant to ever use it again.”