We, the Japan-based international NGO Peace Boat, strongly support the initiative to create a binding treaty prohibiting the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs, and providing a framework for international cooperation and assistance to assist survivors of these inhumane weapons and the removal of unexploded cluster munitions. We support the Oslo initiative of February 2007, which binds ratifying nations to conclude the treaty by 2008.

In light of this, we appeal to the Government of Japan to reconsider its decision not to support the Oslo initiative. We urge it to take a proactive role as the pacifist nation it proclaims to be in working towards the conclusion of a Cluster Bomb Ban Treaty similar to the existing Landmine Ban Treaty.

The cluster bomb is an inhuman, indiscriminate weapon of destruction, and is proliferated widely. It is in use in Iraq, and has been used previously in Afghanistan and Lebanon in the name of the war against terror. Non-military personnel including women and children are falling victim to its destructive capabilities, sometimes even losing their lives, long after hostilities have ended. We refuse to see the use of this weapon continue.

The Government of Japan is now in possession of cluster bombs, and showing a great reticence in acknowledging the inhuman nature of these weapons. The same Government of Japan that ratified the Landmine Ban Treaty on the grounds of its foreign policy, one of the central objectives being 'protecting human security,’ is how displaying disturbing inconsistency. Its policy on cluster bombs is in clear contradiction to Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, and at the same time, is completely at odds with the guidelines of maintaining Japan's exclusively defense-oriented policy. In this action, the Government of Japan is betraying the efforts of international society to minimize the production and proliferation of indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction.

We call on the Government of Japan to abolish its stock of cluster bombs and to take the necessary steps to join in the Oslo initiative to create a binding treaty bringing an end to these weapons.