UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) - Press Conference: Cluster Munitions Monitor 2024

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

On behalf of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in collaboration with International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Ammunitions Coalition, I want to welcome you all to this afternoon global launch of the Cluster Munition Monitor 2024 report.

My name is Fifi Eduafo and I'm a senior researcher for Unidare's Conventional Arms and Ammunitions programme.

It's an honour to chair this year's lunch event on behalf of Unidare.

The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research is pleased to have enjoyed long and close collaboration with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Class Ammunition Coalition over the years, hosting numerous launches of respective campaign launches and annual Landmine Monitor and Cluster Munition Monitor reports.

Cluster munitions are weapons that are delivered from aircraft or fired in artillery, rockets, missiles and mortars.

They open into the air to disperse dozens and sometimes hundreds of submunitions over a wide area.

Their impacts can be devastating and when used in populated areas, can be very devastating.

Moreover, many submunitions fail to detonate as design and pose existential threats long after the conflict had ended.

Adopted 16 years ago in May 2008, the Convention on Cluster Munitions is currently in good standing with 112 state parties here.

There retreats the UN Secretary General's 4th April 2004 call for countries that have not yet joined or fully implemented the convention.

Cluster Munition Monitor 2024 is the 15th annual report of the Cluster Munition Coalition.

It tracks efforts to eradicate cluster munitions by all countries, regardless of whether they have joined the Convention.

The report is based on independent and impartial research.

Cluster Munition Monitor 2024 shows how once again civilians are primary victims of cluster munitions at both the time of attack and afterwards from remnants.

The report also documents how non banning cluster ammunitions is at risk of being undermined, including by new use, production and transfer of states outside the convention.

This week, the CMC and Unidel would attend a 12 meeting of State Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions under the Presidency of Mexico.

This meeting offers a timely opportunity to express grave concerns over humanitarian impacts resulting from repeated and well documented use of cluster munitions in recent years, particularly in Ukraine.

I will now hand over to 4 distinguished civil society experts who have been centrally involved in producing this year's Monitor report.

First, we have Mary William, Deputy Crisis, Conflict and Arms Director at Human Rights Watch, who established the Landmine Monitor initiative in 1998.

She will present the report findings relating to new use, production and transfer as well as progress in stockpile for distraction.

Second speaker is Catherine Atkins, editor for reporting on mine action and Train the Mining Experts.

Catherine would present highlights from the monitors reporting on class ammunition contamination and efforts to reduce that impact through clearance and risk education.

Third speaker will be Lauren Percy, Landmine and Cluster Munitions Monitor Impact Team Lead.

Lauren has edited the Casualty and victims assistance section of every Cluster Munition Monitor report since its inception in 2010.

Lauren will present a report findings relating to the human impact of cluster munitions, including cluster munitions casualties and victim assistance.

Finally, we have Charles Butcher, communication and media Manager at the Cluster Munitions Coalition.

Charles will briefly go over the main resources and materials and expectations for conventional meetings for for the conventions meeting of state parties starting tomorrow in Geneva.

I think Charles will be taking the first word here.

And then I also want to acknowledge in the room the presence of Tamar Garbinek, Director of Geneva Bay's International Campaign to Ban Land mines and also Cluster Munition Coalition and Elia Burrow, Project Manager for the Monitor.

They will stand by to answer any further questions as will come up.

So Charles, you have the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you all for being here today.

As Doctor Edward Full mentioned, this is the 15th Annual Monitor Report.

The report covers the calendar year of 2023 with additional information included where possible up to August 2024.

Physical copies of the report are available at the front of the room and the online version can be accessed as well via the link on our presentation.

The report is now available on the Monitors new website which we launched earlier this year.

The website has been redesigned to make accessing information much more user friendly and easy for everyone, including journalists.

As you log into the page of the Monitor report, you'll be able to see the maps and other tools that you find useful for your reporting.

At the same time, individual country profiles providing detailed accounts and specific findings related to the different topics covered in the report now can be accessed directly from the landing page of the website, and we are still in the process of uploading these country profiles as we speak.

I would like to extend our gratitude to the continued financial support from government funders whose names are displayed on the screen.

And at the same time, I would like also to note that this is not the only news on cluster munitions for this week.

There will be further developments during the Convention on Cluster Munitions meeting of States Parties, which is scheduled to start tomorrow and continue until Friday.

Therefore, I invite you to cover all the major events and developments that will come out from these meetings, especially Lithuania's decision to withdraw from the Convention.

The Cluster Munition Coalition will be organising a panel discussion during these meetings on Thursday at 10 AM, during which we will revisit the humanitarian consequences of cluster munitions and their technical failures, which led to their prohibition in 2008.

Lastly, please keep an eye out for our sister publication, the Landmine Monitor Report scheduled for release on November 20th, 2024, just a few days before the Mindband Treaty Review conference in Cambodia.

Thank you.

And I'll now pass it over to Mary Wareham.

Thank you very much, Charles.

As Doctor Edo Athol from Unidia noted, the Convention on Class 2 Munitions is in good standing with 112 countries that are party to it and another 12 countries that have signed but not yet ratified.

We do, however, note that there has been little progress towards new countries joining the convention over the last year.

This last country to to join was South Sudan in August of 2023.

There have been very few steps to join by some of the major countries that remain outside of the Convention, such as the United States, China and Russia.

That's a shame because the Convention on Cluster Munitions provides a vital framework for ending the immediate and the long term harm and suffering caused by these abhorrent weapons.

We urge all countries to join the Convention if they're serious about protecting civilians from these weapons in the face of rising conflict.

We are deeply dismayed by the formal withdrawal from the Convention by Lithuania, which deposited its instrument of withdrawal of the United Nations on Friday, and it will now take six months for that to go into effect unless Lithuania suspends the process and revisits the decision, which is what the Cluster Munition Coalition urges Lithuania to do.

This is a stain on Lithuania's otherwise excellent reputation and humanitarian disarmament, and it ignores the the risk to civilians.

The Class Ammunition Monitor report details continued use of classmunitions in three countries in Ukraine by Russian forces as well as by Ukrainian forces throughout 2023 and into this year up until this very day.

New use of classmunitions has also been recorded in Syria, where classmunitions have been used repeatedly for more than a decade since 2012 by government forces.

And there's also new use of classmunitions in Myanmar.

It's important for us to note that there are no reports or allegations of any use of cluster munitions by any state party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and that has been the case since the convention was adopted.

18 countries have ceased production as a result of joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions, with one exception, Argentina, which still has not signed yet.

17 countries still produce these weapons or reserve the right to do so, and none of them are states parties to the Convention.

Over the course of the last year, we decided to add Myanmar to the list of countries who produce cluster munitions.

And that's after after research showed that Kapasa Industries, the Myanmar state industry Production facility, has been making a rudimentary cluster munition that is dropped from the air, and it has been using these in attacks around the country.

Myanmar's mission to the UN did not deny those attacks, but denied that the weapon is indeed a cluster munition.

We have a separate slide this year on transfer of cluster munitions because unfortunately, transfers are on the rise.

Between July of last year and April of this year, the United States approved 5 transfers of cluster munitions to Ukraine.

The types of cluster munitions are delivered by artillery projectiles and by ballistic missiles.

We AIT German media outlet, last month detailed how some of the US cluster munitions have been pulled off US base in Germany and have been transited through Germany and Poland and onto Ukraine.

This raises serious questions under the prohibition on assistance in the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits any assistance with banned activities.

Ukraine might have also acquired cluster munitions from other countries in the reporting period, but that's quite hard to track because those countries have been denying the transfer of cluster munitions.

The last point I want point that I wanted to make concerns stockpile destruction.

All of the states parties that are members of the Convention on Cluster Munitions have now completed the destruction of their stockpiles and that means nearly 1.5 million cluster munitions have been destroyed and and nearly 179 million submunitions.

Peru delivered this result in December when it when it completed the destruction of its stockpile.

And also last September we heard from Bulgaria, Slovakia and South Africa who had also destroyed their stocks of Class 2 munitions.

Does this mean that all stocks of Class 2 munitions held worldwide have been destroyed?

Absolutely not.

the United States, Russia, China continue to stockpile cluster munitions and to and in the case of the United States, to transfer them to Ukraine.

So there is still work to be done to ensure that this convention reaches its full potential in protecting civilians and and and stemming the human suffering caused by cluster munitions.

Thank you.

I'm gonna briefly talk about contamination and also the response to contaminations or land release clearance and risk education.

There is not a lot of change in terms of contaminated countries and contaminated state parties.

We record 27 states or other areas this year which are suspected or confirmed to be contaminated.

Last year we recorded 29.

The changes are that we could remove Bosnia Herzegovina from the list, which is great news.

So they completed clearance in August 2023.

We added South Sudan, which was known to be contaminated before, but as it is now a state party member, it's one of the 10 state parties to be known to be contaminated.

We also took the decision to add corvite to the list of contaminated countries.

Although we do not know the extent of the contamination, but we have several reports of cluster munition found predominantly during survey of oil fields.

So we decided to add it to the list, maybe one word to Myanmar.

It is not on the list of contaminated countries because we have reports from attacks.

We have reports of of casualties, which are casualties from attacks.

But we do not have sufficient evidence of actual contamination on the ground.

But we're closely observing that and are going to add Myanmar to the list as soon as we have any evidence in terms of the extent of contamination, Lao remains at the top of the list with a massive contamination of more than 1000 square kilometres of the non state parties.

Vietnam is also on top of the list in the same category with the massive contamination largely contaminated between 100 and 1000 square kilometres remain Iraq, which is a state party and also Cambodia, which is not a state party.

As of the end of last year, 5 states had quite a clear understanding of their contamination.

This includes, this includes Germany, it includes also Iraq, it includes Lebanon and the states that have a less clear understanding of their contamination or as an example Lao PDR in Mauritania.

A survey is still going on in both countries and particularly in Lao.

This is a is a huge task as the contamination is also extensive and big.

So with the Bosnia Herzegovina, who we could add to the list of countries that have completed clearance, we have now in total 11 state parties that have completed their clearance obligations between 2008 and 2023.

Before Bosnia Herzegovina last year, the last two state parties to complete clearance were Croatia and Montenegro in 2020.

Moving on to clearance, we had eight of the 10 state parties that reported clearance in 2023.

We had at least 83.91 square kilometres and over 70,000 submunitions destroyed.

This is less clearance than we had last year.

The reasons for less clearance conducted are predominantly degrees of funding but also increasingly difficult terror to access, particularly in Lebanon.

This is the main concern of them, that all the remaining areas that have to be cleared are in difficult terror, which are simply difficult to access.

But also in terms of methodology to be used to clear, there are some challenges Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia had to go in on South Sudan also reported auto methodologies applied.

So not only clearance but also release of land through non-technical survey and technical survey which we will call cancelled land or reduced land.

And I'd like to emphasise that this is an equally important, an equally important success than than clearance because it helps us to reduce contaminated land through the most efficient methodology.

Somalia and South Sudan are the only state parties which still work towards their original clearance deadline.

So South Sudan obviously just joined.

They have 10 years to go to complete clearance.

Somalia has a bit less left, seems to be on track, but we have to say that Somalia did not really fulfil it's reporting obligations.

It usually comes late or we do not receive an update.

So we do not really know what's going on in Somalia.

In early 2024, three state parties requested an extension of their Article 4 deadline.

Chart requested an extension until 2024.

Germany and lower PDR both until 2030.

So for Germany and lower this means A5 year extension.

For Chart it is a 2 year extension.

Chart will use this extension to survey the remaining area in Tibesti which they suspect to be contaminated.

Germany hopefully will finish it's clearance until 2030.

They know very well what they have to do.

It's just a matter of getting it done.

And in Lao PDR it's a bit a mix.

So further surveys going on, they have good clearance rates, but we also all know that with this massive contamination, it will take them longer and we expect them to hand in further extension requests beyond 2030.

Next slide, please.

Risk education, all contaminated state parties.

So all ten reported conducting risk education in 2023 for class termination but also for older ammunition.

So this is usually combined risk education, which includes all explosive ordinance threats present.

Chela and Germany did not report any risk education as in previous year because the contaminated area in both countries is on military ground which is not accessible to the public.

It's fenced, it's marked, but they do not conduct any risk education.

There not a lot of changes in terms of who are the the main groups at risk.

Men remain the main groups at risk, the **** risk group predominantly due to due to their participation in activities that take them into contaminated areas.

So this includes farmers, herders, herders, shepherds, but also in in general nomadic communities, refugees and ID PS which do of course not only consist of men, but they simply remained the the main group at risk.

Children represented the largest groups of beneficiaries as in previous years as well.

So in 2023 we had 66% of children who benefited from risk education.

This is 14% more than the previous year.

But we have to say this is also due a large data set we received from UNICEF for last year and UNICEF has been focusing on on educating children on the risk.

Most state parties when it comes to to educating children, they focused on boys as they are known to be more have a **** risk appetite than girls.

Only child educated more girls than boys.

But in all other states parties that focused on on children, boys were the highest group targeted.

That's it from my end.

Thank you, Lauren, over to you.

Thank you.

I'd like to continue with some updates on the situation of casualties of classmations and also victim assistance to oh, the casualties, their families and communities.

Significantly, this was the second year in a row where Ukraine had recorded the highest number of annual class mission casualties in the world.

And this this marks a significant change from the a decade of Syria having the by far the highest number of class emission casualties.

It's a very unfortunate 2 years since the full invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and many things concerning the impact of class emissions for the annual statistics for 2023 have remained pertinent throughout the period of the conventional classifications.

So 93% of the casualties recorded were civilians and just under half of the casualties of the unexploited submissions.

The cluster mission remnants that remain, as we just heard sometimes for decades after their use, were children.

Children being attracted to the remnants or otherwise finding them.

As we heard in the situation of of risk and risk education now, the number of casualties recorded was significantly less in 2023 than in 2022.

There's some various factors for that and it doesn't necessarily mean that there was so much fewer casualties and certainly fewer, less impact.

It may be the case that many casualties went unreported because of the nature of conflicts changing, including the conflicts in Ukraine.

And it's also the case that there are very, really very few, although the number of casualties may remain unknown for years.

And it was the situation with with Syria that Syria had the highest number of casualties from 2012 to 2021.

But the casualties from 2012 through 2015, two, 1016 were only really reported years later.

And, and, and that may well be the case again, as I mentioned with the impact, there are very few unknowns when it comes to who suffers most.

It is civilians and children's interacting with unexplored submutions.

And this use of classmutions creates really a a vicious cycle in the sense that it's often when there is a lull in fighting or a peace or people are able to return to land that was affected by conflict and classmation use that people come into contact with unexploited submunitions and we see an increase in casualties.

So the this change, this decrease between 2022 and 2023 unfortunately may not really mean fewer people will suffer because of the use in this.

And we also note that there were many cluster nation attacks just in Ukraine where no casualties were recorded for them.

But then there may have been the casualties that occurred.

So casualties overall globally occurred in nine countries.

That was Azerbaijan, Iraq, Lao PDR, Lebanon, Mauritania, Myanmar, Syria, again, Ukraine and Yemen.

And all of those countries except Myanmar, as Katrina had mentioned, where no evidence so far of classmation remnants has been found, explosive remnants.

So all of the other countries except Myanmar had casualties of classmation remnants and casualties from classmation attacks were only recorded in Myanmar, Syria and Ukraine.

As Mary had mentioned, those attacks just move on to the situation of addressing the impact on victims.

So victim assistance, which is a obligation of the conventional and class missions and it really holds a higher standard of victim assistance has been undertaken very generously, supported by donors in many cases and including by states themselves.

However, the level of assistance is just not matching the needs of customization victims in almost any state and in some countries specifically standing out are Afghanistan and Lebanon.

The economic and other conditions in the country have really meant that victims have been impeded in being able to access the services they need, such as rehabilitation, psychological support and economic inclusion, and jobs and work placement or other financial support.

And those last points, particularly psychological support and economic inclusion are areas where victims have seen the least progress, much less than in sense of rehabilitation on the whole.

So I'll leave it there and hand over.

Thank you very much for the time.

Thank you very much, Lauren, and to almost all the speakers for the insightful presentation and contribution to the subject.

At this moment, I'll open the floor, 4 questions around the room and also online.

So yes, please.

Hi, thank you for taking my question.

Nina Larson with AFPI Want.

I had a couple of questions.

First, on the issue of the number of casualties in Ukraine last year compared to the year before, I understand that maybe all the casualties haven't been haven't been recorded, but would that not also have been the case in 2022?

Because there does seem to be a very large difference.

So if you could explain that a little bit better.

I think there's an echo your your mic is on.

Thanks.

And then I was wondering if you've had any other countries besides Lithuania who've signalled that they might be considering withdrawing from the convention.

If, if and sort of how you link this Lithuania's decision to Ukraine.

I mean, is it, are they considering that these weapons have been useful in their fight against Russia?

I'm just wondering if you could sort of explain that a little bit more and also what way the use in Ukraine is impacting the stability of the convention itself?

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Laurie, you want to take the first question?

Yes, please.

Thanks a lot.

It's a really good question.

Certainly there are there, there's, there's a grey area, an an element of uncertainty when it comes to casually counting in conflict in general.

And the situation last year in Ukraine and and last year really saw a a peak in recorded casualties during an annual.

It was the most casualties recorded in a year since the Convention on class nations entered into force, and that was because of Ukraine.

But there were some factors which may have made that information more available.

And that included some horrendous attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure where there were multiple casualties.

So that was picked up by media.

And then there's another factor, which is that there may also be significantly more military casualties in 2023 them were recorded.

It's possible.

So there were numerous claims in Russian affiliated media or by Russian ministries of class domination attacks on Ukrainian military forces.

We, we note this in the report.

There were always rounded estimates and they were all unverified, but counting those together that would be close to 900 casualties.

So it's a certainly a matter of waiting until information is verifiable.

I-1 could hope that changing situation somehow led to significantly less civilian casualties, but that's not clear I think at this point.

Sorry.

Thanks very much, Nina, for your other questions, including the one about any other countries signalling that they intend to withdraw from the Convention on cluster munitions.

We have not heard that yet.

Perhaps this week we'll hear more at the conventions meeting.

But it's fair to say that the countries that border Russia are very nervous right now.

There are five kind of core humanitarian disarmament conventions, biological weapons, Chemical Weapons Convention, the Cluster Munition Convention, the Mine Ban Treaty and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that makes up the set of humanitarian disarmament instruments, and Lithuania is the first to withdraw from any of them.

So Lithuania's withdrawal has a broader impact than just on the Convention on cluster munitions.

There are now concerns about containing what it has done and trying to ensure that it doesn't spread any further.

As I mentioned, you know, we believe the Convention on Cluster Munitions is in strong standing with none of the States parties engaging in any of the prohibited activities.

The problems lie outside.

The problems lie in countries such as Russia, which has supported serious use of cluster munitions over the past decade and which has used cluster munitions repeatedly in Ukraine.

Other problems lie in the United States, which, you know, President Biden took the decision last July to transfer thousands of unreliable, obsolete cluster munitions onto Ukraine for use in the war there.

And that was a really devastating move for for the United States, but also for the convention because the United States hasn't produced cluster munitions since 2007, hasn't used them since 2003, and yet it has vast stockpiles, which it is going on.

So I guess the lesson from all of this is that if you have the stocks and you're at war, there's a **** likelihood that they will be used.

And This is why we've placed such an emphasis over the last 15 years on ensuring that countries who join the convention destroy their Stock Park Class 2 munitions.

And that's where we're glad to have seen such progress.

But of course, the problems remain outside and we need to tackle and confront them, especially this week.

So we'll be looking for strong outcome documents at the Convention on Cluster Munitions meeting this week, which Mexico is presiding over, and looking for strong commitments from countries going forward to support the Convention on cluster munitions.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Yes, please.

Thank you for this report and thank you to be here.

My question is just only about the UN, because we are now in the UN.

Your organisation is not part of the UN family, but still you are working with them.

I just wanted to know what is concretely your relationship with the UN agencies, if you are working with them to prepare this kind of report or not, and in general what is your relation with the UN?

The Cluster Munition Coalition has a long history of cooperation with United Nations agencies, the UN agencies that work to clear land mines and cluster munitions, such as UNMASK and UNDP, who played a pivotal role in the development of the convention, and UNIDIR has supported the launches of the cluster munition monitor for years.

So this is a good example of the partnership between civil society and the United Nations.

The same partnership exists with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with the countries so part of the convention.

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As I understand it, the question is about what is Germany's responsibilities as a state party under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

At least 34 countries have who are part of the Convention on Cluster Munitions have declared that the transit and foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions are explicitly prohibited by the Convention through the prohibition on assistance.

We used to regard Germany as as being in that camp, but we pulled them off the list this year after the evidence came forward that US class de munitions based on a located stored at a base US base in Germany have been pulled off that base, transferred through German territory onto Poland, which is not a member, and into Ukraine.

It raises all sorts of concerns for the the convention on Class de munitions.

You know, in the very first place, Germany should have told the United States to get rid of the Class de munitions straight away when the convention was open for signature in 2008.

That's what Norway and the United Kingdom did.

And the United States removed its stockpiles from their respective territories.

The WikiLeaks cables, the State Department cables that were leaked by WikiLeaks more than a decade ago, they showed that the United States stockpiles cluster munitions at its bases in other countries as well.

And they may still perhaps be there on the basis in Italy, in Spain and Netherlands and other countries as well.

We'd urge those states parties to tell the United States to remove those cluster munitions now.

So this goes back to the United States and its inability to sign the convention, let alone acknowledge that the Convention on cluster munitions exists.

We look to states parties to take a strong stance on this because it's it's inconsistent with their their commitment.

To to the absolute prohibitions to be allowing a state non state party such as the US to to do this.

Thanks.

Thank you very much, Mary.

Yes, please yes.

So was it to rate related to the new conflict in in Gaza?

So we have, what we have is the evidence of of the legacy contamination in Lebanon, but we do not have evidence of new common contamination due to the new conflict if this was the question.

Yes, I have another part, the situation today in Lebanon, We know in 2006 Israel launched many bombs in South of Lebanon today, what is the situation?

Thank you.

And if you have some, some information about Gaza, Israel uses this kind of bomb in Gaza.

Yeah.

So to the situation in in Lebanon, we have the detailed data in terms of contamination in our country profile.

So there is a remaining contamination left and as I briefly mentioned, Lebanon currently struggles accessing the remaining contamination and they also keep finding well new contamination, contamination they didn't know before.

So they are still conducting survey as well.

But we are confident that this contamination is going to be cleared let's say in the near future.

Lebanon struggles as well with having the financial means to clear the rest based on their economic crisis.

But they are exploring new possibilities for new funding or yeah, they're, they're thinking about even crowdfunding.

So I would say the situation is moving in the right direction.

In terms of the conflict in Gaza, we do not have any evidence of any contamination on use.

But Marie, you're probably going to say something about that.

Yeah, Yeah, thanks very much.

I just want to confirm that we've not seen any evidence of cluster munitions being used in Gaza or in South Lebanon.

The last Israel's last use of cluster munitions was in South Lebanon in 2006 and its last production of cluster munitions was around about 2018 when the last cluster munition producer in Israel shut down that line of of business.

It's also important to note that class demonitions, we've not seen any evidence of new class demonition use in Sudan in that current conflict.

So This is why we we highlight those three countries in the report as being the ones where class demonitions are being used today, which is in Myanmar, Syria and Ukraine.

Thanks.

Thank you very much, Mary.

Yes, please.

Thank you very much.

My wish that we for cute the news Japan.

I just have a questions regarding the production.

How are you justifying and verifying every year that sorry North Korea is producing cluster munitions?

Thank you.

So we list countries as producing class to munitions until they tell us otherwise and until they commit not to produce in future.

And so there is evidence that North and South Korea have produced class to munitions and they'll remain on that list until they tell us otherwise and commit not to do so, or better yet, until they accede to the Convention on class to munitions.

And you know, we, we write to governments, use official Information Act requests and, and some researchers attended the Eurosatery Arms exhibition in Paris this year in June where they saw companies from India and South Korea promoting cluster munitions for sale there, which is actually illegal in France under their national implementing legislation for the Convention on cluster Munitions.

So after the organisers were alerted, I understand that those, those, those cluster munitions were pulled from the promotional part of it.

So we have, you know, 2 problems here.

We've got vast numbers of stocks of cluster munitions held by countries who have not joined the convention.

And there's also new production in certain countries, but most importantly, a big number of countries that are refusing to join the convention and that are leaving the door open to keep producing in future.

Any more questions from the room?

Are there any questions online please?

Yes, news agency, thank you for taking my questions.

As the coalition tried to engage with the Lithuanian authorities.

And do you have any indication that they might reverse their decision in the next 6 months?

And then clarification, because in the news release it was mentioned 28 countries and territories contaminated or suspected to be contaminated.

And I think when you raise that at the beginning of the press conference, Miss Atkins, you mentioned 27.

So just to clarify that.

Thank you.

I'll take the question on.

Have we tried to engage Lithuania?

My organisation, Human Rights Watch, was in Vilnius exactly a year ago talking to the Lithuanian government about this rumour that we'd heard from a posting on Facebook by the defence minister that Lithuania was going to look to leave the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

And, and, and we and other members of the Cluster Munition coalition alerted governments who are part of the treaty, the Red Cross, the United Nations, and over the last year engaged in a lot of behind the scenes diplomacy to try and encourage Lithuania not to go down this dangerous path.

Once the instrument, once the proposal to withdraw from the convention was introduced in parliament, that put it out in the public spotlight.

And that was the moment at which people started to read about this move in the media.

To be honest, it all depends or much, much depends on the coming week and on not so much what what we say as civil society, but what the treaty states parties say to Lithuania.

And we know that Mexico as presidents and other members of the Convention on Class munitions have been doing their utmost to try and convince Lithuania not to leave the convention.

It's, it's, it's baffling because Lithuania never had Class 2 munitions.

It never acquired them, never stockpiled them, never used them.

And all of a sudden it sees a need to have Class 2 munitions as a, as a deterrent as it says it will find issues with procuring Class 2 munitions.

We are sure.

And so we plan to continue to keep up that dialogue.

I'll see the Lithuanian ambassador this Wednesday.

It's important that we keep talking to Lithuania and it's really important that we have the convention, six months waiting period before the withdrawal goes into effect.

This convention was designed to be of use not just in times of peace, but in times of armed conflict, when times get tough.

And This is why it's dismaying to see Lithuania take this move.

Yes, and the second answer is the short run.

It is 28 States and other areas.

If I said 27, I apologise, that was wrong.

28 states.

Are there any more questions?

I think that perhaps brings us to the end of this afternoon's presentation.

Whilst it appears that there's a marked improvement in the fight against cluster ammunitions, they appears to assist a lot of challenges that perhaps we need to resolve going into the future.

Civilians to suffer from the use of cluster admonitions, as the presentations have shown, and children account for nearly half of cluster ammunition remnants.

And so it tells us that there are still some major challenges for us to to deal with.

On behalf of the United Nations Institute for the Summer Mint Research and on CMC, I want to thank the presenters for the insightful presentation and valuable contribution to the subject.

And I will encourage the media and participant in the room to widely circulate the report and make sure that it gets to almost everybody.

Thank you very much for your valuable contribution, speakers, and have a good afternoon.

Thank you.