DISARMAMENT: Blinding Laser Weapons Banned Before Deployment

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 3 1998 (IPS) - The international community has agreed to ban one of the world’s deadliest weapons – designed to blind humans – even before it could be deployed in the battlefield.

With Hungary’s ratification of a protocol to a U.N. convention prohibiting “excessively injurious conventional weapons”, blinding laser weapons have now been outlawed internationally.

“The protocol on blinding laser weapons clearly demonstrates that blinding is a totally unacceptable form of warfare,” says Louise Doswald-Beck of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

This is the second time in history that a lethal weapon has been prohibited before it has been used in war, the first one being exploding bullets banned soon after their development in 1868. Russia, the only country to have developed these bullets at that time, agreed to ban it under a declaration called the St. Petersburg Declaration. The bullets were prohibited because they were designed to explode inside the body causing excessive suffering.

Hungary became the 20th country to ratify the new protocol last Friday.. The ban on blinding weapons will come into force in July this year: six months after the 20th ratification. The 19 other states which have already ratified the protocol include: Australia, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Holy See, Ireland, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Spain, Sweden and Uzbekistan.

“The protocol highlights the role of international humanitarian law in preventing apreventing a horrific new form of suffering for soldiers and civilians alike,” Doswald-Beck said. “By prohibiting both the use and transfer of blinding laser weapons in armed conflicts, the protocol may also prevent their falling into the hands of those who might use them for terrorist or criminal purposes.,”

According to ICRC, blinding laser weapons, which can be as small as an ordinary rifle, emit a laser beam which can cause immediate and irreversible blindness over distances of up to several kilometres. These weapons were on the verge of large-scale production, mostly by the United States. There have also been unconfirmed reports that the U.S. used blinding laser weapons against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

The ICRC Monday urged all U.N. member states to adhere to the protocol as soon as possible and to adopt national measures to prevent the production, transfer, use and proliferation of blinding laser weapons. The convention, which was adopted in 1983, also has three other protcols which prohibit the use of booby traps, incendiary weapons and non-detectable fragments in weapons of war.

Last year about 122 of the 185 U.N. member states signed an international convention to ban another devastating weapon of war: anti-personnel landmines. The treaty, however, needs 40 ratifications before it could come into force.

Only three of the 122 signatories – Canada, Ireland and Mauritius – have so far ratified the treaty which prohibits the use, production, development, acquisition, sale, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel landmines.

Some of the countries shying away from the landmine treaty include the United States, Russia, China, Israel, Egypt, India, Pakistan and North and South Korea.

Last year, Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that the world continues to lose ground to landmines, which kill or maim 6,000 to 8,000 children a year, shatter families, destroy livelihoods and subvert the best efforts of struggling people to better their lives.

For every mine removed worldwide, 20 new ones are planted, Bellamy noted. Despite the growing international outcry, more than 115 million unexploded mines remain concealed in the earth worldwide, a number that is growing by two million annually, she said.

Most of the mines are in some 70 developing nations, 18 of them in Africa. The countries with the most horrific landmine problems include Egypt, with 23 million unexploded mines, Iran, with 16 million and Angola, with 15 million.

Other countries battling landmines include Afghanistan, Cambodia, China and Iraq (each with with 10 million mines), Bosnia- Hercegovina (six million), Vientam (3.45 million) and Croatia and Mozambique (each with three million)