Moldova 30th country to ratify cluster-mine ban, makes ban binding international law

Moldova ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions last week, bringing the number of countries that have done so to the necessary 30 to make it binding on August 1, 2010. About 104 countries have signed the Convention thus far since it was adopted in May 2008. The ratifying countries will meet in Laos in 2010.

The Convention - also known as the Oslo Agreement - bans the use, production, storage, or sale of such mines. The law also requires assistance for victims of cluster bombs, which blow up before hitting ground and release tens of smaller bombs across a large swath of territory. As a result, the exact location of these bombs hitting the ground is often random. Some of them do not explode right away and become dormant explosives.

The U.S., Israel, Russia, and China have refused to ratify the treaty.

According to the United Nations, an overwhelming number of cluster bomb victims - 98 percent - are civilians. About 40 percent of those are children.

The weapons were first used by the Soviet Union in 1943. They have most recently been used during the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 and the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006.

Moldova still has stockpiles of cluster bombs. The convention requires that it destroy these munitions within eight years.