Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

I accept where the Senator is coming from in respect of his well-known views on pacifism and morality. It is hard to argue against the points he made. He stated these devices are lousy, nasty and evil and all weapons that have the capability of killing or maiming people are lousy and nasty. However, one must remember that this Bill deals with the specific subject of cluster munitions, which typically are weapons dropped from the sky and do indiscriminate damage, usually to civilians. One must focus on what is being dealt with in the Bill under discussion. Were one to carry the logic of the Senator's argument to its ultimate conclusion, this Bill should outlaw nuclear and chemical bombs. While I agree with and share the Senator's pacifist views on both those issues, the question is, first, whether it is relevant to the matter under discussion and, second, whether it might frustrate the implementation of what has been a unique diplomatic agreement between nations. I believe it would do so for a number of reasons.

First, the Senator made the point that his amendment would introduce a desirable level of uncertainty. I consider this to be highly undesirable because universal application is the purpose of such conventions. The Senator is a champion of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was applied inconsistently, some countries would have completely different interpretations of what constitute the right to life or the right not to be tortured. There must be a consistency of definition about all international conventions and the word, "convention" is used because it is a matter of agreement between the parties. While the Senator makes the point he does not accept it will cause problems with the ratification of the treaty, it will. We did not follow the path taken by countries such as Belgium and Austria, which legislated in advance of the conference, because there was no agreed definition. As was their right, they adopted unilateral positions. Were we to do so, we would have pre-empted the outcome of the convention. Like Austria and Belgium, we might also have found ourselves unable to ratify the treaty because of its inconsistency with domestic law.

Senator Norris does not accept that the provision will cause problems with ratification, but it has already caused problems in two countries. They cannot ratify the treaty, but the main difficulty lies in the problems caused to their operation of the convention on the ground.