scholarly journals Banning Evil

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Garcia

The rise and entry into force of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) that prohibits cluster bombs constitutes a global prohibition regime. I argue that this new prohibition regime and the arising new international norm set by the CCM, i.e. the prohibition of the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention or transfer of cluster munitions developed due to a strong moral opprobrium, initially elicited by commanding moral force of International Humanitarian Law as a robust and compelling previously existing normative structure and then by the success of the ban on landmines that acted as a model of activism and fast-track diplomacy a decade before. The ban on cluster bombs is about military doctrines succumbing to the higher authority of moral and humanitarian concerns propelled by activist non-governmental actors and a few forward-looking states.

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita H. Petrova

AbstractThe article examines the roles of NGOs in banning cluster munitions that resulted in the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and the campaign against landmines in the 1990s. It argues that NGOs have managed to move questions about the use of force from the closed decision-making sphere of military commanders and arms control diplomats into open public debate. Thus NGOs have simultaneously desecuritised the use of force by states, securitised certain weapons technologies, and made human beings the referent object of security. This has marked a shift from state security and strategic disarmament to human security and humanitarian disarmament, without fundamentally challenging the laws of war. However, in contrast to realist views that only militarily useless weapons ever get banned and radical critical perspectives that see new legal regimes as legitimating war and US hegemony, I argue that NGOs have engaged in immanent critique of military arguments and practices based on prevailing principles of international humanitarian law. The resulting weapon ban treaties have both restrained US policy and undermined its legitimacy. The article explores the discursive choices that underpinned the remaking of the security agenda by NGOs and their role as de/securitising actors and emancipatory agents of change.


2000 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 169-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avril McDonald

Milestones, particularly those as special as the twin-birth of a new century and millenium, lend themselves to rhapsody and the urge to say something positive and forward-looking. The Yearbook is not merely succumbing to this tendency, however, when it observes that, in some important respects, 2000 proved itself an auspicious opening. There was a flurry of activity among states to implement international humanitarian law (IHL), most of it a consequence of states ratifying the several humanitarian law treaties that were concluded in the late-Nineties.


2008 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 391-404
Author(s):  
Nout van Woudenberg ◽  
Wouter Wormgoor

AbstractOn 3 December 2008, theConvention on Cluster Munitions(hereinafter the Convention), a legally binding instrument on cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians, was signed by 94 states in Oslo. The Convention is the result of a Norwegian initiative of November 2006 which, ultimately led to negotiations conducted in Dublin from 18-30 May 2008 between 111 states. Below, a short overview will be given with regard to the process that led to the Convention, followed by a short explanation of the most relevant Articles of the Convention and the ideas behind it. Finally, a determination will be given with regard to the future role of the Convention in the field of international humanitarian law.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Crawford ◽  
Alison Pert

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