More than three years of negotiations preceded the signing of the agreement in Dublin on Friday. The implementation will change the way military operations are conducted in such areas, said Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. In addition to the USA, Great Britain and France, Austria is also a signatory.
Russia, China, India and Israel are not on the list of participating states. The agreement is not legally binding.
The head of the department for disarmament issues in the Austrian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Kmentt, described the agreement (EWIPA) as a “milestone for humanitarian disarmament and the protection of the civilian population,” as the Foreign Ministry announced on Twitter. Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, who was unable to attend the conference himself, was “proud” of the passing of a political declaration. “After all, it was Austria that initiated this process with a conference in Vienna in 2019,” said Schallenberg, according to his spokesman. “With the Political Declaration, we want to take another step towards completely outlawing this type of warfare.”
Critics accuse Western countries of hypocrisy on this issue. The United States and Great Britain used heavy explosive weapons in Mosul, Iraq, in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.
Explosive weapons include bombs, artillery pieces, rockets, mortars, and other wide-area weapons. According to human rights groups, such weapons are used by Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine. These weapons injure and kill thousands of civilians worldwide and destroy civilian infrastructure such as homes, schools and hospitals. According to the UN emergency relief agency OCHA, 50 million people live in cities where fighting is taking place. When explosive weapons (or explosive weapons) are used, 90 percent of the victims are usually civilians.
Since the declaration is not legally binding, states that use such weapons are likely to ignore it. However, the signatories hope to build moral pressure and strengthen civil society groups who want to get their governments to sign. Ireland has collaborated with the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Explosive Weapons Network (INEW) of several non-governmental organizations in the drafting.
Source: Nachrichten
