Quote Originally Posted by Kagemusha
Cluster bombs is such a umbrella word that it can mean lots of things. If cluster bomb is just a bomb with numerous small high explosive or antitank daughter munitions, which will detonate immediately when they hit the target and area around it, banning them would be same as banning artillery or air to ground munitions all together, which i dont think has any base in a humanitarian cause. In that case we might just as well ban assault rifles.
But if the cluster bomb contains lots of antipersonnel mines or "devices" as mine is a bad word novadays, which will stay in the ground and continue causing casualties until removed by engineers or removed at all. In that case i can understand the ban. If the antipersonnel mines were banned in Ottawa, there is a case against artillery and air to ground deployed anti personnel "devices" also if they in fact are mines. But when a whole range of weapons is classified under a single hazy word, i cant see any clause for such a ban.
Cluster munitions don't have a single legal definition but they are much more closely defined than portrayed in your first paragraph.

Indeed, the thrust of the Dublin summit is to tighten the definition legally, because the characteristics of cluster munitions may well break existing Geneva Conventions. Many commentators consider use of extant cluster munitions to be illegal already because of this. The work being done now is to make this explicit.

There's actually little advantage in these munitions and the new generation tend to be more precise and self-destructive - and thus allowable under the proposed treaty. We've outlawed much chemical and biological weaponry and recently land mines because of their indiscriminate nature.

It is no betrayal of our Armed Forces for us to always strive to minimise civilian casualties.