A conference in New Zealand agreed on Friday the outline of a global treaty to ban cluster bombs, which campaigners say have killed and maimed thousands of civilians, even though big powers are not ready to join, Reuters reported. New Zealand's Disarmament Minister Phil Goff said 82 countries, around fourth-fifths of those attending, had immediately backed the Wellington Declaration, setting out the draft of a treaty ahead of final negotiations in Dublin in May. "I think the effect we are hoping for is to get a substantial majority of countries signed up to a treaty in Dublin so that those who have remained outside the process feel the same stigma about using cluster munitions that countries outside the Ottawa convention feel about using landmines," Goff told reporters. The Declaration said cluster bombs caused unacceptable harm to civilians and their use, production and transfer should be banned. It also called for a framework to provide rehabilitation for those injured by the weapons. Some 140 states are involved in the Oslo process, launched by Norway three years ago to prepare a treaty on an international ban outside the United Nations-sponsored Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which many think is too slow.
