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Just dozens of Syrians were killed today in an attack suspected chemical weapons in Idlib.
Whether as a bomb cannon, munitions or landmines, civilians die too often to arms hand the international community has undertaken to prohibit After years of declining use and progress in the destruction of stocks, deaths from these munitions are rising but which weapons are allowed, which aren t, and why and can t be done to prevent the killing indiscriminately.
Starting with the Geneva Conventions of 1949, IHL has long tried, with varying success, to mitigate the impact of war on civilians and protect non-combatants.
International humanitarian law expressly prohibits the use of weapons that are indiscriminate But what counts as indiscriminately treated is defensible, if others have sprung up to ban certain types of weapons These agreements are often limited by the scope and membership, not to mention a lack of teeth.
The growing role of non-state actors such as criminal militias or networks poses an additional challenge to the rules and regulations established by states as Mark Hiznay, arms associate director at Human Rights Watch, has Imagine going to ISIS and talk of the Geneva Conventions now, imagine how far you'll get.
But it is not only extremist groups who ignore international law and while Syria may be the highest profile example of a state that continues to do evil, ammunition made in Britain and the States STATES are also accused of killing indiscriminately.
This guide outlines who does what and where, and explores efforts to extend regulation to protect civilians.
In force since 1997, the Convention on Chemical Weapons prohibits the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of chemical weapons, and the forces of member states to destroy stockpiles as one of the most universally ratified multilateral treaties there are a few outliers Israel has signed but not ratified the convention, and North Korea, Egypt, the Palestinian leadership and South Sudan have not signed at all.
The Outlaws CWC any weapon that uses a toxic chemical, usually in a distribution system such as a bomb or a chemical weapons shells are distinguished both by how they are distributed and the effect they have on body the most common classes are the choking agents chlorine and phosgene, nerve agents sarin, soman and VX, blistering mustard and lewisite agents, blood agents and hydrogen cyanide.
Despite the Convention, stigma decades of international condemnation and old red line of US President Barack Obama was never, chemical weapons have been used recently to Syria and Iraq.
A joint investigation by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded last October that the two forces of President Bashar al-Assad and that the Islamic state called used chemical weapons in Syria a UN panel investigating the mechanism joint set up by the security Council to address this question, also confirmed at least three cases where the Syrian army used chemical weapons between April 2014 and August 2015 the panel also evidence that serves sulfur mustard filled shells commonly called mustard gas.
In addition to the findings and the attack Idlib today IMD, a recent survey HRW said that Syrian government forces systematically abandoned shells containing chlorine from the quencher in residential areas of Aleppo controlled by opposition at least eight times in the last month of the battle for the city in northern Syria.
Reports Mosul, where the Iraqi army and its allies supported by a coalition led by the Americans continue to wage an offensive against IS, indicate that the chemical weapons were probably used in early March to the then besieged the city the International Committee of the Red Cross provided support of this assertion, saying seven patients were treated near Mosul symptoms consistent with exposure to a chemical agent blister Iraqi forces claim iS was behind the attack.
The alleged repeated use of chlorine by IS in recent years reveals a dangerous gap in the CWC While chlorine weaponising in rockets or bombs is prohibited under the Treaty, chlorine has many commercial uses and nothing n prevents states or companies to acquire or sell, said Yasmin Naqvi, a legal officer OPCW.
Chlorine is a chemical not intended and is reportable, and the production, transfer and use of chlorine is not verified by the OPCW, Naqvi told IRIN This makes it very difficult to contain.
She added that once the chlorine is dispersed, it leaves almost no trace, by investigating its use as a weapon extremely difficult.
The reports of the Mosul attack came just days after a UN Security Council resolution proposal that would have imposed sanctions against parties in Syria using chemical weapons was struck blocked by China and Russia.
Hiznay HRW fears that the vote of the Security Council created a worrying precedent for the future.
Now, the CWC is slippery, he told IRIN You start to see the benefits in Mosul now that stigma around chemical weapons has eroded, which really should be obvious at this stage.
The global taboo against chemical weapons remains strong, with the almost universal membership of the CWC and of international action taken in Syria, Libya and Iraq to eliminate stockpiles of chemical weapons, she said, pointing to the recent long year extension of the mandate of Jim as proof that the international community remains committed to condemn and prevent the use of chemical weapons worldwide.
Chemical weapons are not only a concern in the Middle East, even if their use could get the most press A recent Amnesty International survey presented evidence that the Sudanese government may use chemical weapons against civilians Darfur several times in 2016. the jury's still on the United Nations then head of peacekeeping Hervé Ladsous told the UN security Council had found no evidence of chemical weapons used in the region, although of the UN hybrid peacekeeping mission and the African Union in Sudan, UNAMID, has been denied access to areas of conflict in Darfur for its part, the OPCW said that without access to more information and evidence that he could not draw conclusions on the allegations of Amnesty.
Further south, in aid workers Nuba Mountains of Sudan and local officials have reported possible chemical weapons use by the government of Sudan was a member of the CWC since 1999 and was recently elected Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council OPCW, a move that prompted the right group to ask again an official inquiry into the alleged attacks.
These bombs, rockets or shells, once exploded, releasing a bunch of smaller explosives, or submunitions, sometimes over an area roughly the size of a football field.
massively used in Syria and Yemen currently, cluster munitions have a devastating impact on civilians.
Eighty-seven percent of deaths munitions in 2015 were civilians, according to the latest report of the monitor With these weapons, it's not just the initial attack that threatens the smaller explosive released do not always explode, creating a large field of mines that can take years to erase, kill or injure civilians in between.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions CCM has entered into force in 2010, with steam won after Israel dropped some four million bomblets on south Lebanon in the last days of the Lebanon War in 2006 about one million n ' not immediately explode, leaving a deadly legacy.
Modeled after the Mine Ban Treaty, the CCM prohibits the production, transfer and use of cluster weapons and forces of member states to destroy stockpiles but there is a catch all types of containing explosive munitions are prohibited by the treaty.
The CCM defines cluster as a munition designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions excluded from the agreement are munitions which contain less than 10 submunitions weighing less four kilograms, and are designed to detect and engage a single target and are equipped with both an electronic self-destruction and self-deactivation function mechanism.
This allows even the states that have signed to further manufacture and use similar variations of the weapon.
Cluster munitions prohibited by the CCM are still there too the beginning of the war in Syria, they rarely worked, but Russia is a major producer and exporter of ammunition and is not part of the CCM entered the field battle in September 2015 saw a rise in their use, although the Kremlin denies allegations it did in urban areas.
In Yemen, cluster munitions have been a big part of the war of the Saudi-led coalition Houthi rebels and their allies None of the 10 members of coalition is a party to the CCM and Riyadh admitted to using and UK- United States made cluster weapons in Yemen after rights groups presented evidence of attacks But Saudi Arabia argues that, as a non-party to the CCM, it does not violate the international law and only uses cluster munitions against legitimate military targets.
HRW and Amnesty International have documented evidence of at least 19 attacks of cluster bombs in Yemen, many of which resulted in the death of civilians, and seven different types of two dropped munitions and ground-ground manufactured in the United States, UK and Brazil.
Recent reports of civilian casualties in Syria and Yemen have caused a public outcry in the munitions supplier countries in the Warring States In December 2016, Michael Fallon, the secretary of defense of Britain CCM members, said Parliament an assessment of the Government revealed that in UK- cluster weapons were used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
In the United States such as Saudi Arabia not a member of the convention, the last manufacturer of cluster bombs stopped production last year because it was bad for business in May 2016, the Obama administration blocked US to sell weapons munitions to Saudi Arabia after reports of civilian deaths in Yemen, but that could change as the Trump administration is seeking to strengthen its support to the coalition.
The Sudanese government has also used cluster munitions in recent years in the Nuba Mountains, where the six-year war against a rebel movement has displaced tens of thousands.
The monitor also cited credible evidence that cluster rockets were used in Karabakh in 2016. The renewed fighting in the disputed border region between Armenia and Azerbaijan last year broke a cease -the-1994 and has made more than 100 deaths Armenia and Azerbaijan refuse the use of ammunition group and point the finger the other.
Last January, Somali local media reported that the Kenyan army had used cluster munitions in the Gedo region of Somalia in Kenya, a member of the CCM, denies the allegations Monitor could not independently verify the claims.
None of these weapons are new, at least in their basic design, but touches something changed modern warfare often involves battles It is more likely to occur in urban areas, in neighborhoods where children go to school to work and parents.
dropped bombs, artillery shells, missiles and rockets, mortars and improvised explosive devices have all called the effects extended a big explosion and fragmentation area This makes their use in populated areas particularly problematic .
In 2015, 91 percent of those reported injured by explosive weapons in populated areas were civilians, according to the action on the explosive violence of armed violence Monitoring Project EVMP These attacks also frequently damage or destroy vital civilian infrastructure , houses, schools and medical facilities, resulting in the loss of livelihood, displacement, disease spread, and limited access to medical care and education.
Since EVMP began counting in 2011, the number of civilian deaths and injuries from explosive weapons has increased every year.
Under customary international law, States must not launch indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks that could cause excessive harm to civilians against the military gain or target civilians or civilian infrastructure.
The same weapons are used in urban areas but haven t had enough significant changes in the updating of policies and practices that specifically regulate the use of these weapons, said Laura Boillot, program director with Article 36, a NGO based in the UK that hosts and coordinates a network of NGOs called the International network on explosive weapons INEW.
INEW hopes to help forge a new international commitment to establish a strong norm against this practice and help military states in the development of how they can develop clear rules of engagement and clear operating practices to better protect civilians, Boillot told IRIN.
This policy statement is not legally binding but rather a mechanism built on existing principles of international law which would help to establish a norm against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
But getting anything done, whether a declaration of principles or something with more force, is a gargantuan task in the current international arena is always a matter of political will, said Hiznay HRW.
Brehm and urges caution focusing on a type of relatively uncontrolled drones killer weapon or by the new cannon bombs can do other indiscriminate weapons and even those permitted by international law seems ok.
T here is a trend when looking at the conflicts to focus on the relatively exotic weapons and focus on what is perceived as normal, she said in a way, this focus on these very repugnant technologies or use practices implicitly normalizes the use of weapons that each state and are used daily in conflict everywhere.
TOP PHOTO damage suffered by a landmine in a rehabilitation center in Bissau CREDIT José Cendon ICRC.
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