In order to make their voices heard and to lobby for a cluster bombs ban, 110 associations involved in the fight against cluster bombs joined together in 2003 to form the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC).
Today the CMC brings together more than 250 NGOs from 70 countries.


Handicap International is a member of its steering committee alongside Human Rights Watch, Mine Action Canada, LandMine Action UK, Pax Christi, DanChurchAid, Austrian Aid for Mine Victims, Protection (Egypt), NCBL (Nepal), IPPNW Russia. All these associations are also actively involved in the campaign against landmines.

2 objectives:

- That nations work towards a ban on cluster bombs, rather than choosing to make technical improvements to cluster munitions, reducing or eradicating their failure rate.

- That nations adhere rapidly to Protocol V on the explosive remnants of war which demands that the parties involved in an armed conflict remove all explosive remnants of war (although this is not enough in itself as it does not solve the problems caused by the use of cluster bombs). Members of the CMC regularly participate, as representatives of civil society, in sessions of the "1980 UN Convention on Conventional Weapons" (CCW)* which governs the use of war explosives. Within the framework of this convention, governmental experts are currently pursuing their work and are now specifically addressing the question of cluster bombs.


_{*The CCW is an instrument of international humanitarian law which looks to minimise the humanitarian impact of certain weapons which have indiscriminate effects or are out of proportion with the identified threat. 102 states are parties to this convention and decisions are taken by consensus.}