CLUSTER BOMBS AND THERMOBARIC WEAPONS

Cluster munitions

• According to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, a cluster munition means a “conventional munition that is designed to disperse or release explosive submunitions each weighing less than 20 kilograms, and includes those explosive submunitions”.
  
  
• Essentially, cluster munitions are non-precision weapons that are designed to injure or kill human beings indiscriminately over a large area, and to destroy vehicles and infrastructure such as runways, railway or power transmission lines.
  
  
• They can be dropped from an aircraft or launched in a projectile that spins in flight, scattering many bomblets as it travels.
  
  
• Countries that have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions are prohibited from using cluster bombs.
  
  

Thermobaric weapon

• Thermobaric weapons — also known as aerosol bombs, fuel air explosives, or vaccum bombs — use oxygen from the air for a large, high-temperature blast. A thermobaric weapon causes significantly greater devastation than a conventional bomb of comparable size.
  
  
• Vacuum bombs are not prohibited by any international law or agreement, but their use against civilian populations in built-up areas, schools or hospitals, could attract action under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.