The Oslo Process

Since 2003, Handicap International and the other NGOs of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) are engaged in a struggle to make nations aware of the need to end the use of submunition bombs. Massive use of these arms during the Lebanese conflict in the summer of 2006 marked a major turning-point in the heightening of international awareness of the problem.

In 1996, following the example of Canada, Norway launched the Oslo Process on antipersonnel mines within a diplomatic framework in order to arrive at a treaty prohibiting submunition bombs by 2008.

This diplomatic process is defined as a cycle of international conferences that began in Oslo on February 22 and 23, 2007. Forty-six countries accepted at the time to commit to the process. Today, there are 155 committed nations and 89 of them have already signed the Wellington Declaration with the goal of participating in the next conference in Dublin, held from May 19 to 30, 2008.