GENEVA: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on Wednesday for urgent conclusion of a global pact to ban cluster weapons even if big powers like the United States, Russia and China were not ready to join.
The Swiss-based humanitarian body's senior arms specialist, Peter Herby, told a news conference the ICRC hoped the text of a treaty would be approved at a conference in Dublin in May and be signed by many countries by the end of the year.
"We need a strong, legally-binding treaty urgently, in 2008, that would ban the use, development, stockpiling and transfer of inaccurate and unreliable cluster munitions," said Herby, who heads the ICRC's Arms Unit.
Herby discounted arguments from some producer states that the weapons -- which can spread hundreds of bomblets over a target area -- can be made to self-destruct or otherwise rendered harmless after conflicts in which they have been used.
Cluster bombs -- which campaigners say have killed or maimed thousands of civilians stumbling on them -- can never be made totally reliable, he declared.
