On 18 July, 2024 the Lithuania’s Parliament passed a bill indicating their desire to withdraw from the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). They would be the first ever state to withdraw from a treaty that bans an entire class of weapon due to humanitarian concerns.

Cluster munitions are devastating indiscriminate weapons that cause huge devastation for civilians – with children among the primary victims who make up over 70% of casualties. They leave homes, fields, towns and roads as minefields and continue posing a threat for years after. In Dublin in May 2008, more than 100 states agreed to ban cluster munitions, and Ireland played a leading role in the international efforts to eliminate weapons that have caused decades of misery.

Today, the new use, and remnants of cluster munitions, continue to harm and endanger people’s lives. Indeed, every day, around the world members of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are confronted by the grim reality of the widespread human suffering and lasting harm caused by cluster munitions. It is not an abstract or theoretical threat, but a measurable, quantifiable, heartbreaking calamity.

The Irish Red Cross has communicated directly with the Department of Foreign Affairs to highlight the significance of this, and the need to ensure that we redouble our collective efforts to promote universal adherence to the Convention and its norms.

As the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric has said, International Humanitarian Law and its obligations are “not made for the hopeful days of peacetime… It is essential that states do not take the route of pulling away from treaties and conventions that keep the vulnerable safe and mitigate the horrors of war”.