Proposition 52K2232

Projet de loi portant assentiment à la Convention sur les armes à sous-munitions, faite à Dublin le 30 mai 2008.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

Sept. 15, 2009

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

conventional weapon international agreement war victim prohibited weapon arms limitation arms trade

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

Dec. 3, 2009 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker of the Committee. Then I will briefly defend the position of our group.

The Foreign Relations Committee discussed the draft law at its meeting of 17 November 2009. An introductory presentation was given by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yves Leterme. He clearly highlighted the strengths of the treaty.

All those present at the committee meeting will confirm that the discussion was very brief and unanimous. Everyone agreed that Belgium, more specifically the Chamber and Senate, played a leading role in the present case. Everyone was very pleased with the imminent ratification of the treaty.

The bill was unanimously adopted in the committee.

As far as the report is concerned.

I would like to start my discussion with a story, in particular the story of Ayat Seleiman Ali.

She was eight years old in 2003, when Iraq was bombed. Her eleven-year-old brother Jacob ran out after one of the many bombings that Iraq hit at that time. Jacob found a yellow toy. It looked like a bell, as the schoolboy used in the classroom. He took the pride home and showed it to his two brothers of fifteen and three years old and to his sister Ayat. Then the explosion occurred and in a blow Ayat had lost her two brothers. She had burned 65% of her body.

Colleagues, along with many other victims, Ayat tells her story, so that finally a ban on the terrible cluster bombs would come. If she is courageous enough to continue to testify, then we must continue to fight for the removal of these bombs, so that there are no more casualties, just as our military deminers, by the way, continue to work to re-secure fields, playgrounds and airports in the countries concerned.

Colleagues, therefore, I would like to pay tribute to all our military personnel who were carrying out the hard and thorough work on the ground. Specifically, I would like to mention Stefaan Vanpeteghem. He was a 35-year-old deminer, who died in Lebanon while cleaning up unexploded cluster ammunition. He gave her life.

Over the past 42 years, at least 440 million cluster bombs have been used in various conflicts. If we take into account a non-explosion rate of 5 to 30%, then there are — keep it — still 22 to 132 million of such deadly toys distributed around the world.

So far, there are 13 000 confirmed victims of cluster ammunition, including 3 000 boys. While they kept sheep or played on the streets, their lives were destroyed by an unexploded bomb.

I do not have to tell you, colleagues, that in countries with the highest number of cluster bombs the victims are unfortunately not registered. Therefore, we can actually speak of 55 000 to 100 000 victims in the world.

Colleagues, I think I have made clear in my speech today that Open Vld attaches great importance to the ratification of this treaty, which includes a ban on the use, production, transport and storage of cluster ammunition.

As everyone here may know, Belgium was in 2006 the first country in the world to ban cluster ammunition, just as we did years earlier, when we were the first to ban anti-personnel mines. I don’t know if everyone knows cluster ammunition. It spreads small bombs that, when they do not explode, are actually anti-personnel mines. When we passed the ban on anti-personnel mines here 11 years ago, everyone said that we would never realize an extension of it, that we would stand alone. Well, we got an extension. We have succeeded.

Three years ago, when we approved the ban on cluster ammunition here, it was said that no country would follow us. We have succeeded again, my colleagues. The convention on cluster munitions, proposed at Dublin on 30 May 2008, is revolutionary in that sense. Not only does it ban cluster ammunition, but it also imposes very large obligations regarding helping victims of these terrible weapons.

Colleagues, I am actually very proud, because I think that our country has played a very big, important role in this matter from the very beginning. We first approved the ban here and then our diplomats made every effort to persuade other countries to vote on such a ban.

I started my discussion with the story of a young woman. I have spoken to victims of anti-personnel mines and cluster ammunition, also recently on my mission to Colombia. You see people who have lost a arm or leg while simply walking through the fields or being at work. If one has heard those testimonies — I see colleagues who were with them on mission — one can only continue that struggle. We must not give up. We must make sure that damn ammunition is banned from the world.

Open Vld hopes that in addition to the current 100 signatories and 24 ratifications, there will be many more to follow and that the ratification process and its implementation will go through very smoothly.

Colleagues, I haven’t heard anyone say this yet, but today is December 3, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Let us give them today a positive message of hope by massally, unanimously, approving this bill. I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, colleagues, over the past 15 years, our country has indeed played a leading role in the fight against weapons that, according to international humanitarian law, cause unnecessary suffering.

With the law of March 1995 on anti-personnel mines, trap mines and similar mechanisms, Belgium was the first country to impose a ban on their use. The humanitarian effects of cluster ammunition are at least as dramatic as those caused by anti-personnel mines. Cluster ammunition poses a huge economic, social and psychological threat to citizens. More than 98% of all confirmed victims of these weapons are civilians. The list of countries affected and often still suffering is unfortunately too long to list here.

It is therefore not surprising, colleagues, that our country has once again made efforts to reach an internationally accepted and legally binding instrument of prohibition. Here too, Belgium – partly inspired by the experiences with anti-personnel mines – has played a pioneering role, only by anticipating an international treaty through its own national legislation. The law of May 2006 supplementing Article 4 of the law of 3 January 1933 on the manufacture, trade in, and carrying of weapons and on the trade in ammunition prohibits the use of so-called submunition.

A ban through domestic legislation is obviously not enough to come to a global ban. In addition, there is already an international framework in the fight against the use of cluster ammunition. But that was – at least until December 2008 – inadequate and too limited.

Simultaneously with the Belgian proposal, Norway has taken the initiative to come apart from the United Nations to a ban on cluster bombs, which eventually resulted in the present treaty. In more than a year and a half, the international community has managed to submit an international treaty for signature on 3 December 2008, exactly a year ago.

Based on the experience gained by the international community in the fight against anti-personnel mines, this Convention on the Prohibition of Cluster Munitions is a step further. In addition to the global ban on the production and use of cluster ammunition, the Convention also provides for the necessary instruments for the provision of assistance to the victims and their families, as well as for the clearance in the affected areas. These two elements are crucial for the reconstruction of an affected country or region and for the reintegration of victims into public life.

Today we want to further highlight the leading role that our country has played, including through the rapid ratification of the treaty.

That is why our country wants to ratify the treaty before the end of the year, in other words, a year after the signing. This allows us to join the twenty-four countries that have already preceded us. After all, it is explicitly our intention to definitely finish within the top 30 countries, and we have good hopes that this will also succeed. This latter number is of crucial importance, as six months after the 30th ratification, the provisions of the Convention may enter into force.

Since this is a mixed treaty, we also call on the counties that have not yet given their parliamentary approval to complete the parliamentary hearing as soon as possible.

The CD&V group will, of course, approve that historic treaty. At the same time, we would like to convey the message to the government to encourage, in bilateral contacts and in international forums, those countries that have not signed or ratified the contract so far, and which often belong to the largest producers and users, to still do so. After all, only then can we really stop those weapons, which cause unnecessary humanitarian suffering.

Mr. Speaker, I will take the word briefly on my bank.

I would like to thank all the colleagues who actively contributed to the creation of this law in 2006. Belgium was the first country in the world to ban cluster ammunition.

Then I think that a word of gratitude should go out to those NGOs – it is a coalition of NGOs – who under the leadership of Handicap International have taken initiatives to prepare the ground in several other countries to come to that treaty. It was, therefore, thanks to their actions that the Dublin Convention was signed. We are all pleased that our government and our Parliament will also ensure that Belgium soon becomes a signing member of that treaty.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to draw the attention of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs.

When we had passed the law in Belgium, I had asked and encouraged the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karel De Gucht, to take up his diplomatic staff as well and to begin to diligently do so. Unfortunately he left that. As a result of this, in fact, Norway first incorporated the diplomatic staff. For this reason, the process of reaching the treaty was also called the Oslo Process.

The second country that played a leading role in this was Ireland. That is why the convention that eventually led to the signing of the treaty took place in Dublin, making it now known as the Dublin Treaty.

I would like to ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs not to allow a second time to happen what happened with the cluster ammunition. Once again in this Parliament, a majority has formed to become the first country in the world to come to a ban on weapons containing impoverished uranium. Currently, in various international forums, in the European Parliament, as well as in the United Nations, a debate is under way to reach a global ban on weapons with impoverished uranium.

I would like to call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs to pay attention to this file and to examine whether he, together with his diplomacy, can not develop efforts to initiate as soon as possible a process that should ultimately lead to a treaty banning weapons with impoverished uranium. I hope that this time will succeed, and that we therefore will not experience that, where our Parliament was the first parliament in the world, we must nevertheless conclude that the treaty will eventually be called the Dublin Treaty.

With regard to impoverished uranium, I hope that we will soon be able to talk about the Brussels Treaty prohibiting weapons containing impoverished uranium. This depends largely on the efforts our Minister of Foreign Affairs wants to deliver with his diplomacy. Mr. Minister, be convinced that the Belgian civil society is ready and is already taking initiatives to prepare the ground.

Mr. President, as Mr. Van der Maelen, I remember the struggle that had to be fought and which was won thanks to Handicap International and the concern of Belgian parliamentarians. By adopting a provision prohibiting submunition weapons, we have been pioneers in this area.

As a member of the group, I have the opportunity to speak today. In fact, it was in Liege that the company Les Forges de Zeebrugge was established which had at the time an important contract negotiated in particular with Germany. At that time, we had the courage to meet with those responsible and explain to them that we could not follow them in the production of this type of weapons. They then reflected, with our support, on the need to find other niches of activity; what they did.

The courageous act made by Belgium led this company to orient its activity differently and the sponsors to give up their orders. It is an example of an act of political courage that, in connection with companies, allows them to evolve and allow them to survive while reorienting their activity.

I am ⁇ pleased that the outcome of this struggle is today the conclusion of the Dublin Convention on the Prohibition of Submunition Weapons and I join Mr. Van der Maelen said that the EU presidency would be a great opportunity for Belgium to take its pilgrimage stick and to ban impoverished uranium weapons in Europe, and even beyond.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I truly think that the great consensus here should not prevent us from staying still for a moment on the meaning of your consent to this treaty later on.

In any case, I support the words of appreciation expressed here towards the Belgian civil society. It is fair and fair that we as politicians acknowledge that this very important work has been delivered by the civil society. This should also be emphasized.

Many of you have recalled that Belgium played a pioneering role by voting, in 2006, already, a ban on the level of submunition weapons. This 3 December, after a process that proved to be more complicated for our country, this treaty having been considered to be of mixed competence following the opinion of the State Council, we come to the end of the exercise. In May of this year, the Flemish Region approved the treaty, followed in November by the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region.

Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid will speak at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World in Colombia.

It is the second revision conference of the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel mines. The Princess will therefore visit a Belgian project related to victim relief and anti-personnel mines of Handicap International in Medellin. It is, of course, a summit on anti-personnel mines, but much attention will also be paid to the exact process of ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. I can signal you that the princess will mention in her speech that Belgium is today taking the final step in the parliamentary ratification process.

I have taken note of the call, among others, of Mr. Deseyn and Mr. Van der Maelen, to contribute in our further bilateral diplomatic contacts to the further expansion of, first, the group of countries that will have signed the Convention, and to make further efforts in connection with the further reduction of weapons that indeed cause useless or unnecessary suffering.

Let me say one thing, and I think you will not blame me for that, Mr. Van der Maelen. I think the victims of the weapons in question will be more interested in a quick international agreement or in the exact name of the city that adheres to the treaty. I think you do not want to say anything else. I will indeed contribute to what you want, not to create another additional Brussels treaty, but with the intention to take responsibility as soon as possible as the Belgians, as we have done in the past.