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human rights watch
Report Details Ongoing Civilian Harm From Banned Cluster Bombs
"The Convention on Cluster Munitions provides a vital framework for ending the immediate and long-term harm and suffering caused by these abhorrent weapons," said one of the treaty's architects.
Sep 09, 2024
The overwhelming majority of cluster bomb casualties last year were civilians, with children making up nearly half of those killed or maimed by remnants of the internationally banned munitions, a report published Monday revealed.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) published its annual Cluster Munition Monitor report, which "details the policy and practice of all countries with respect to the international treaty that prohibits cluster munitions and requires destruction of stockpiles, clearance of areas contaminated by cluster munition remnants, and victim assistance."
That treaty, the landmark Convention on Cluster Munitions, has been ratified by 112 nations. However, numerous countries that are not parties to the agreement—including Myanmar, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and the United States—continued to use or sell cluster bombs.
"Cluster munitions can be fired from the ground by artillery, rockets, missiles, or mortars, or dropped by aircraft," HRW explained. "They typically open in the air, dispersing multiple submunitions or bomblets over a wide area. Many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving unexploded duds that can indiscriminately injure and kill like landmines for years, until they are found and destroyed."
The results have been devastating. According to the report, 93% of cluster munition casualties reported by the monitor last year were civilians, while children made up 47% of those killed or wounded by cluster bomb remnants. Children are particularly vulnerable to unexploded cluster bomblets, which are often mistaken for toys.
According to the report, the following countries suffered more than 1,000 cluster bomb casualties in 2023: Laos (7,810), Syria (4,445), Iraq (3,201), Vietnam (2,135), and Ukraine (1,213).
HRW noted that "Russia has used stocks of old cluster munitions and newly developed models in Ukraine since 2022" and that "between July 2023 and April 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden approved five transfers to Ukraine of U.S. cluster munitions delivered by 155mm artillery projectiles and by ballistic missiles."
Meanwhile, unexploded cluster munitions dropped by the United States during the Vietnam War are still killing and maiming people, mostly children. In Laos, where the U.S. dropped more bombs than all sides in World War II combined, as many as 270 million cluster munitions were sprinkled over the country. Unexploded bomblets have killed an estimated 20,000 Laotians since the end of the war. It is believed that less than 1% of unexploded cluster munitions have been cleared in Laos.
The report highlighted some promising developments:
In December 2023, the convention reached a major milestone when Peru completed the destruction of its stockpiled cluster munitions, as it was the last state party with declared stocks to complete this obligation. Bulgaria, Slovakia, and South Africa announced the completion of the destruction of their respective cluster munition stocks in September 2023. These developments mean that member countries have collectively now destroyed 100% of their declared cluster munition stocks, destroying 1.49 million cluster munitions and 179 million submunitions.
However, there were also setbacks, such as legislation in Lithuania approving the Baltic nation's withdrawal from the cluster bomb treaty.
"Lithuania's ill-considered move to leave the Convention on Cluster Munitions stains its otherwise excellent reputation on humanitarian disarmament and ignores the risks of civilian harm," said HRW deputy crisis, conflict, and arms director Mary Wareham, who edited the new report. "It's not too late for Lithuania to heed calls to stop its planned withdrawal."
Speaking more broadly of the new report, Wareham—a joint recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines—said that "the Convention on Cluster Munitions provides a vital framework for ending the immediate and long-term harm and suffering caused by these abhorrent weapons."
"All countries should join and adhere to the convention if they are serious about protecting civilians from these weapons in the face of rising conflict," Wareham added.
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ICC Urged to Probe Israel's Alleged Torture of Gaza Medical Workers
"The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government's treatment of detainees generally," said one Human Rights Watch expert.
Aug 26, 2024
Palestinian medical workers' harrowing accounts of arbitrary detention and torture by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza prompted calls on Monday for a war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor is already seeking to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders for atrocities committed on and after last October 7.
Eight doctors, nurses, and paramedics formerly held by Israeltold Human Rights Watch (HRW) that they suffered "torture—including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces—denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions," as well as "humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing, and blindfolding."
"The Israeli government's mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop," HRW acting Middle East director Balkees Jarrah said in a statement. "The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC)."
"The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government's treatment of detainees generally," Jarrah added. "Governments should publicly call on the Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all detained Palestinians."
The medical workers interviewed by HRW provided similar accounts of being detained in Gaza before being sent to detention facilities in Israel, including the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where former prisoners and Israeli whistleblowers have described torture and other abuse including amputations due to extreme shackling. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
A group of Sde Teiman guards has also been arrested in connection with an alleged gang-rape of a detainee that was caught on video. The IDF reservists' arrests sparked a violent attempt to free the suspects by a far-right mob whose members included senior Israeli government officials. Meanwhile, many Israeli leaders, media personalities, and celebrities have publicly defended the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners.
One paramedic who was imprisoned at Sde Teiman and featured in the new HRW report said he was "suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations."
"It was so degrading, it was unbelievable," he said. "I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this."
Another paramedic imprisoned at Sde Teiman, 36-year-old Walid Khalili, said that when his captors removed his blindfold, he saw "dozens of detainees in diapers... suspended from the ceiling."
"He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity," the report states.
An ambulance driver told HRW that he saw Israeli guards beat two men to death with metal pipes while he and other Palestinians were being held in a large metal cage near the Israel-Gaza border fence.
Eyad Abed, a 50-year-old surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital, was seized by Israeli forces during the November siege and invasion of the facility. Abed said Israeli soldiers broke his ribs and tailbone during torture sessions.
"Every minute we were beaten," Abed told HRW. "I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: One soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I'm a doctor, but they didn't care."
In addition to torture, the medical workers interviewed by HRW described hellish living conditions in Israeli custody.
According to the report:
Abed, the surgeon, said the food was "horrible" and inadequate, and that he lost 22 kilograms (49 pounds) during a month and a half in detention. The bathrooms were "not even fit for animals." The mattresses and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were "unbearable." In the cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one hour a day, with a "disgusting" stench emanating from the nonflushable toilets. "They gave us a bag for the garbage. We used to fill it with water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no choice," Abed said.
The new HRW report is the latest evidence of Israeli torture of Palestinian medical workers, more than 500 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since October, according to United Nations agencies. There have been numerous reports of Israeli forces deliberately targeting medical workers.
Healthcare professionals living and working—often without pay for months—under such conditions are experiencing severe trauma.
"Several staff members told us they were simply waiting to die, and that they hoped Israel would get it over with sooner rather than later," a pair of U.S. surgeons who volunteered at Gaza European Hospital wrote earlier this month for Politico.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Israeli forces have killed more than 40,400 Palestinians—mostly women and children—in Gaza since October, while wounding at least 93,500 others. At least 10,000 more Gazans are missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of buildings in the obliterated strip.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel's bombardment and invasion. Israel's "
complete siege" of Gaza has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the brink of starvation; dozens of children have died due to malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of adequate medical care. Preventable diseases including measles, hepatitis, and polio are spreading, threatening not only Gazans but people in nearby countries including Israel and Egypt.
Meanwhile at the ICC—which is also located in The Hague—Prosecutor Karim Khan is
pushing the tribunal to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders, at least one of whom, former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel.
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As Drones Enter Battlefields Worldwide, Call Grows for Global Ban on Killer Robots
"Without explicit legal rules, the world faces a grim future of automated killing that will place civilians everywhere in grave danger," one human rights expert said.
Aug 26, 2024
As drone warfare continues to proliferate worldwide and concerns grow over the use of artificial intelligence by militaries, Human Rights Watch on Monday backed United Nations' Secretary-General António Guterres' call for an international treaty to ban "killer robots" that select and attack targets without human oversight.
In an August 6 report, Guterres urged the international community to negotiate a treaty prohibiting lethal autonomous weapons systems by 2026. This is a widely supported idea, as 47 of the 58 submissions to the report from more than 73 countries endorsed either a ban or increased regulations.
"The U.N, secretary-general emphasizes the enormous detrimental effects removing human control over weapons systems would have on humanity," Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "The already broad international support for tackling this concern should spur governments to start negotiations without delay."
The momentum behind a ban is building as armies around the world are increasingly deploying and testing militarized robots and drones. The U.S. military became the first nation to widely deploy drone warfare during its War on Terror campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Iraq following the attacks of 9/11. But today, from Israel's use of drones in Gaza and the West Bank to China and Russia's growing arsenals, the use of remotely operated weapons is rapidly expanding.
Ukraine War
HRW's call came the same day that Russia launched an attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure using around 200 missiles and drones. The attack killed at least five people and knocked out power and water in several parts of the country, Reuters reported.
"It was one of the biggest combined strikes. More than a hundred missiles of various types and about a hundred Shahed drones. And like most previous Russian strikes, this one is just as sneaky, targeting critical civilian infrastructure," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
Ukraine has also used long-range attack drones against Russia, targeting sites such as oil refineries and military airfields.
North Korea
Also on Monday, North Korean state media reported that the country's leader Kim Jong Un had supervised a test of a North Korean attack drone.
Pictures showed a drone colliding with a target that looked like a South Korean K-2 main battle tank and obliterating it an a fiery explosion.
The North Korean test coincides with increased tensions with South Korea and the U.S. as well as a joint exercise by the two countries to prepare their militaries for a potential conflict with North Korea.
Noting their importance in modern warfare, Kim said he wanted North Korea to be equipped with drones "as soon as possible" and urged the manufacturing of several types including exploding drones, attack drones, and underwater suicide drones, according to North Korean state media.
China/Taiwan
Drones featured in another global hot spot as China sent two drones over the sea between Taiwan and Japan's westernmost island of Yonaguni on Friday, as the Joint Staff Office under Japan's Defense Ministry observed.
China's move followed two actions by the U.S. military: the first ever U.S. Marine Corps deployment of a radar capable of sensing aerial threats including drones from Yonaguni on July 29 during exercises and the sending of the destroyer USS Ralph Johnson to the Taiwan Strait on Thursday.
Gaza
Israel has also used drones "systematically" in its ongoing war on Gaza.
In a February report, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said it had confirmed that dozens of civilians had been killed by "small killer drones," including the Matrice 600 and LANIUS models. The drones were equipped with explosives, machine guns, and artificial intelligence.
"Israel is intentionally using them to target Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip," Euro-Med said, adding that "the majority of Israel's targeting takes place in public spaces where it is easy to distinguish fighters from civilians."
Summit of the Future
World leaders will have a chance to curb the proliferation of drones in warfare in New York in September, when they will convene at U.N. headquarters for the Summit of the Future, an initiative of Guterres.
The summit is expected to produce a "Pact for the Future," the current draft of which recommends acting "with urgency" toward international control of killer robots.
"The Summit of the Future provides an important opportunity for states to express high-level support for opening negotiations to ban and restrict autonomous weapons systems," Wareham said. "Without explicit legal rules, the world faces a grim future of automated killing that will place civilians everywhere in grave danger."
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