Cluster Munitions and the Proportionality Test, Memorandum to Delegates of the Convention on Conventional Weapons, Human Rights Watch, April 2008

The calls for a new international legal instrument to ban or restrict cluster munitions derive in large part from the weapons’ significant and foreseeably grave after effects on civilians, which have been thoroughly documented by many, including Human Rights Watch. States parties to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) took a first step toward reducing the impact of unexploded submunitions with CCW Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW), but this instrument only provides post-conflict remedial measures. Because the severe and long-lasting aftereffects of cluster munitions on civilians are foreseeable, they can and must be prevented