Last year, the New Zealand government was one of the first to sign the new Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty banning the use, production and stockpiling of cluster bombs. Today, they introduced a bill into Parliament to enable ratification - the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill. The bill would ban anyone in New Zealand from using, possessing, developing or transferring cluster munitions, and more importantly, would ban members of the New Zealand armed forces from requesting the use of cluster munitions when they are operating with other states overseas. So for example, if John Key sends the SAS to Afghanistan to fight the US's losing war there, they would not be able to call in US airstrikes which use cluster munitions to indiscriminately massacre Afghan civilians. And this is a Good Thing.
I'm now wondering whether to adapt some of this language for the Depeleted Uranium (Prohibition) Bill...
