The United States and several other producers and stockpilers of cluster munitions have failed in their attempt to create a weak protocol at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) that would have allowed cluster munition use.
A majority of states at the CCW conference rejected outright the effort to give legal cover to use these weapons in the future, ending more than four years of talks on this issue. The failure to establish a weaker alternative to the existing ban leaves the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions as the sole international instrument to prohibit the use, production and transfer of cluster munitions, require their destruction, and promote the rights of victims and survivors.
U.S. non-governmental organizations call on the U.S. and all remaining non-signatories to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions without delay.