Campaigning against cluster bombs in Wellington, NZ.

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Cluster munitions & land mines

Photo: Mary Wareham

Caritas has played an important part in campaigns to ban cluster munitions and land mines - weapons that pose particular threats to civilians, long after conflicts end.

Caritas is part of an international campaign to promote an end to cluster bombs and the damage they cause, through the Convention on Cluster Munitions agreed in December 2008. That treaty aims to ban production and distribution of cluster bombs, and deal with their effects. It is part of international law, following its ratification by 30 countries on 16 February 2010. New Zealand, which played a lead role in negotiating the treaty, ratified it in December 2009.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand joined the Aotearoa New Zealand Cluster Munition Coalition in March 2008, and has played an active role in the coalition. Internationally, the Holy See has also keenly promoted the convention, as cluster bombs represent the gravest threat to civilian lives of any conventional weapon.

Land Mines

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand was also part of the campaign to get landmines that resulted in the Land Mine Ban Treaty of 1997. We continue to be members of the New Zealand Campaign Against Land Mines (CALM).