What are Cluster Bombs and Thermobaric Weapons?

In Context 

• Human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Russia of using cluster bombs and vacuum bombs in the ongoing war.

What are Cluster Munitions?

• According to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, a cluster munition means a “conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions”.
• Essentially, cluster munitions are non-precision weapons that are designed to injure or kill human beings indiscriminately over a large area, and to destroy vehicles and infrastructure such as runways, railway or power transmission lines. 
• They can be dropped from an aircraft or launched in a projectile that spins in flight, scattering many bomblets as it travels.
• Many of these bomblets end up not exploding, but continue to lie on the ground, often partially or fully hidden and difficult to locate and remove, posing a threat to the civilian population for long after the fighting has ceased. 
  • The unexploded cluster bombs also pose major long-term environmental damages, as their chemicals can severely contaminate ground water and soil compositions. 

What is a Thermobaric Weapon?

• Thermobaric weapons — also known as aerosol bombs, fuel air explosives, or vaccum bombs .
• These are called vacuum bombs as they suck in oxygen from surrounding areas to generate high-voltage explosions. 
  • The blast wave is of a greater intensity and duration than conventional bombs and can vapourise humans.
• The weapons can be fired as rockets from tank-mounted launchers or dropped from aircraft. 
• The thermobaric bomb involves a two-stage munition. 
  • The first stage converts carbon-based fuel into minute metal particulates, which are discharged as an aerosol. 
  • The second part detonates the aerosol, converting it into a huge fireball and simultaneously creating an impactful shock wave. Inside this shock wave, a vacuum is created, which draws in the nearby oxygen and exponentially enhances the severity of the explosion.
• Thermobaric bombs are devastating and effective in urban areas or open conditions, and can penetrate bunkers and other underground locations, starving the occupants of oxygen. 
• There is very little that can protect humans and other life forms from their blast and incendiary effects.

Is it legal to use these weapons?

• Countries that have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions are prohibited from using cluster bombs. 
  • As of date, there are 110 state parties to the convention, and 13 other countries have signed up but are yet to ratify it. Neither Russia nor Ukraine are signatories.
• Vacuum bombs are not prohibited by any international law or agreement, but their use against civilian populations in built-up areas, schools or hospitals, could attract action under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.
• Amnesty International said international humanitarian law prohibits the use of inherently indiscriminate weapons such as cluster munitions. 
  • Launching indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians constitutes a war crime,

Why are some weapons banned, even in war?

• Although thermobaric weapons are not yet unequivocally banned, there are several points that argue against their development and use.
• International humanitarian law stipulates what is and is not permissible during warfare. 
• There has long been an understanding that even wars have their limits: while some weapons are considered legal, others are not, precisely because they violate key principles of humanitarian law.
• A new report from Human Rights Watch makes it clear the Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal. 
  • It draws on the Geneva Conventions to define the illegitimacy of Moscow’s actions, including its use or potential use of particular weapons.
  • The use of weapons in indiscriminate attacks – those that cannot distinguish between combatants and civilians – is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

Present Status 

• Efforts to ban these weapons have not yet produced a clear prohibition. The 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (commonly called the “Inhumane Weapons Convention”) addresses incendiary weapons, but states have managed to avoid an explicit ban on thermobaric bombs.
  • In addition to the impacts on civilians, thermobaric bombs would cause superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering. Under international humanitarian law, they should not be used.
• There is a point at which – even if a war is deemed legitimate or “just” – violence must not involve weapons that are excessively cruel or inhumane
  • If a weapon is likely to prolong the agony of soldiers (or civilians) or result in superfluous and unacceptable injuries, theoretically its use is not permitted. 

Way Forward 

• It is these very real dangers that led 122 states at the United Nations to vote in favour of developing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.
• The war in Ukraine is the latest reminder that we must act to eliminate thermobaric, cluster, and nuclear weapons, under strict international control.
  • The stakes are simply too high to allow these dangers to remain.

Source:IE