Victim Assistance

Introduction

In many ways a landmark humanitarian disarmament agreement, the Convention on Cluster Munitions is the first international treaty to make the provision of assistance to victims of a given weapon a formal requirement for all States Parties. It is also the first international humanitarian law treaty to include a reporting obligation for victim assistance. At this significant milestone, the fifth year since its entry into force on 1 August 2010, the Convention on Cluster Munitions continues to set the highest standard in obligations for the provision of assistance as well as on reporting practices on victim assistance.[17]

The objectives of the convention's victim assistance obligations were elaborated in the 2011–2015 Vientiane Action Plan adopted by States Parties at the First Meeting of States Parties in November 2010, which included a set of measurable goals and commitments.[18] This victim assistance overview includes Monitor reporting and findings from 2010 to 1 August 2015.[19]

Research shows that the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and victim assistance in humanitarian disarmament more broadly, has contributed to making more resources available to survivors, as well as people with similar needs—mostly persons with disabilities.[20] Because it requires a non-discriminatory approach to providing all forms of assistance and services, victim assistance often contributes to addressing some of the needs of persons with disabilities who are not survivors, but also have requirements—for assistance and the fulfillment of their rights—that are similar to those of cluster munition victims.

Some victim assistance efforts have reached family members of people killed by cluster munitions, as well as those who survived direct harm from cluster munitions. Assistance to so-called indirect victims is, however, far less common than assistance provided to survivors and persons with disabilities.[21]

The Convention on Cluster Munitions has provisions to safeguard against discrimination that align it with the 2008 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which includes non-discrimination as a general principle and proscribes “discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability.”[22] In addition, the Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits discrimination between cluster munition victims with disabilities and other persons with disabilities and requires that differences in treatment be based only on medical, rehabilitative, psychological, or socioeconomic needs.[23]

The preamble of the Convention on Cluster Munitions highlights the close relationship between the CRPD and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[24] However, while domestic implementation of the CRPD is developing alongside the implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the structures established under the CRPD had often not yet built adequate capacity for supporting the fulfillment of the state’s obligations under either convention. In such circumstances, existing victim assistance-specific coordination remained the most viable mechanism for maintaining progress on the objectives of the Vientiane Action Plan.

By codifying the international understanding of victim assistance and its components and provisions that originally developed under the Mine Ban Treaty (1997), the Convention on Cluster Munitions has also influenced the victim assistance commitments in the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), particularly Protocol V and its Plan of Action on Victim Assistance (2008). It has also been reinforcing victim assistance practices under the Mine Ban Treaty’s five-year action plans. All but two of the States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions with cluster munition victims (Lao PDR and Lebanon) are also party to the Mine Ban Treaty and, as such, have also made victim assistance commitments through the Mine Ban Treaty action plans.

Non-signatories Cambodia and Vietnam are also viewed as countries with the most significant numbers of cluster munition victims in need of assistance and support.[25] Both have recognized the need to assist cluster munition victims and to provide information on their victim assistance efforts.[26]

The Convention on Cluster Munitions requires that States Parties with cluster munition victims implement specific activities with tangible outcomes, including the following:

• Ensure adequate, available, and accessible assistance;
• Provide assistance that is gender- and age-sensitive as well as non-discriminatory;
• Collect relevant data and assess the needs of cluster munition victims;
• Coordinate the implementation of victim assistance and develop a national plan;
• Integrate assistance into existing national disability, development, and human rights frameworks and mechanisms;
• Actively involve cluster munition victims in all processes that affect them; and
• Report on progress.

States Parties with responsibility for cluster munition victims should identify the resources available as well as mobilize international cooperation for victim assistance activities. The convention holds that States Parties in a position to provide international cooperation and support should direct assistance to implementation of the convention’s victim assistance obligations.[27]

Five years after the convention was adopted, victim assistance required significantly greater targeted resources to be made available in order to address the needs identified by States Parties and cluster munition victims.

Victim assistance under the Vientiane Action Plan

The Vientiane Action Plan (2010–2015) has provided a set of commitments guiding the implementation of victim assistance in all its key aspects.[28] Under the plan, states with responsibilities for cluster munition victims must increase their capacities for providing assistance.[29] Correspondingly, the States Parties in a position to provide assistance should promptly respond to requests for support “to ensure that the pace and effectiveness of these activities increases in 2011 and beyond.” They should also “strive to ensure continuity, predictability and sustainability of resource commitments.”[30]

Most of the time-bound actions of the Vientiane Action Plan were formulated to begin at the point of entry into force for each State Party. This meant that the states that ratified initially had the full five years to organize and implement the actions of the plan, while the most recent States Parties had less than two years.

Entry into force for States Parties with cluster munition victims

Government focal points

All States Parties with responsibility for cluster munition victims must designate a government focal point for victim assistance issues.[31] Under Action #21 of the Vientiane Action Plan they committed to do so within six months of the convention’s entry into force for each State Party.

Since entry into force of the convention, all States Parties with cluster munition victims rapidly designated one or more focal points, with the exception of Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. Some states’ focal points have changed over the course of the past five years. Croatia designated the Croatian Mine Action Centre as its victim assistance focal point in 2011, and then transferred that responsibility to the Office for Mine Action in 2012.[32] Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) reported that its focal point was located within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2010–2011.[33] It did not report a victim assistance focal point in 2012–2014.[34]

Assessing needs

Understanding cluster munition victims’ situations and requirements is essential to meeting needs. Under Article 5, the convention requires that States Parties make “every effort to collect reliable relevant data” and assess the needs of cluster munition victims. Under Action #22 of the Vientiane Action Plan, all necessary data should have been collected and disaggregated by sex and age, and the needs and priorities of cluster munition victims assessed within one year of the convention’s entry into force for each State Party.[35]

Monitor reporting indicates that data collection efforts in Albania, Croatia, Lao PDR, and Lebanon prioritized limited survey resources by focusing on understanding the needs of survivors and disaggregating data by age and sex, above identifying the specific number of cluster munition victims or which weapons caused the casualties. In BiH and Montenegro, the number of cluster munition victims was revised by survey, but did not record or report information on the age and sex of casualties and the needs of survivors. While no States Parties fulfilled the action within the timeframe envisioned, most States Parties took steps or saw progress in needs assessment.[36]

Authorities in Albania, in cooperation with the main victim assistance NGO Albanian Association for Assistance, Integration and Development (ALB-AID, maintained records of cluster munition survivors that detail their needs and the services received.[37] ALB-AID with support from the Albanian Mines and Munitions Coordination Office (AMMCO), expanded data collection to assess the socioeconomic and medical needs of marginalized ERW victims in several regions throughout the country.[38]

In Afghanistan, no specific national survivor survey or needs assessments have been carried out, but government ministries, the ICRC, and NGOs have collected data on the needs of survivors and other persons with disabilities for the implementation of projects. The social security registration system for persons with disabilities includes survivors. However, an independent assessment found serious problems with the system and reported that it required a significant overhaul.[39]

BiH completed a major national casualty data revision in 2009, but did not include the category of cluster munitions/unexploded submunition casualties in the questionnaire.[40] After entry into force of the convention, BiH reported in June 2011 that it had identified 225 previously unrecorded cluster munition casualties.[41] BiH has continued to identify new cluster munition casualties, however, the data has not been disaggregated by age or sex, and details were insufficient for planning or analysis.[42]

Croatia continued to pursue a commitment it made in 2009 to unify existing data on mine/ERW casualties, including cluster munition victims, to be available for use in survey and needs assessment as well as for the implementation of services.[43] A coordination group was established in 2010 to develop a unified survivor database, but progress stalled in 2011. The project restarted in 2013, and by 2014, a unified database was completed and ready for use in a needs assessment survey.[44] In early 2015, a lack of funding delayed survey implementation and alternative means to conduct the survey were being explored.[45]

In Chad, a mine/ERW survivor survey and needs assessment in the most mine/ERW-affected areas of the country was carried out by the mine action center (Centre National de Deminage, CND) with the technical support of Handicap International (HI), while it was still a signatory state in 2010. A planned countrywide mapping of all mine/ERW survivors, announced in 2011 as part of the implementation of the National Action Plan on Victim Assistance, has not been completed, while a census of mine victims and their needs was identified as a priority in 2013.[46]

In Iraq, the identification of cluster munition casualties through an ongoing survey and needs assessment was reported. Iraq’s survey of mine/ERW victims had identified 880 cluster munition victims (148 people killed, 732 injured) in five provinces as of 31 March 2014.[47] Another 16 were identified during April to December 2014.[48]

Lao PDR’s national UXO (unexploded ordnance) victims and accidents survey, which started in 2008, recorded data disaggregated by age and sex back to the 1960s.[49] However, only 15,000 mine/ERW survivors of more than 21,019 recorded were believed to still be living in 2010 (including an estimated 2,500 of 4,300 recorded cluster munition survivors).[50] This reduced the usefulness of the data for planning and implementing services. To address this, Lao PDR introduced a survivor tracking system in 10 provinces through which more than 10,000 individual survivors’ survey forms had been received by the National Regulatory Authority for the UXO/Mine Action Sector in the Lao PDR (NRA) by 2013.[51] By the beginning of 2015, all data received was entered into a database to be shared for the preparation of work plans and funding requests.[52]

The Lebanon Mine Action Center (LMAC) completed the first phase of a national needs assessment of mine/ERW and cluster munition victims, including survivors and family members, in 2010 prior to entry into force for Lebanon.[53] In 2013, Lebanon initiated another national survey and needs assessment of 690 people injured, as well as the families of people killed, which was finalized in 2014. Survey data provided the national Victim Assistance Steering Committee with information focusing mostly on medical and rehabilitation needs.[54]

In Montenegro, in 2013, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), in cooperation with the state-run Montenegrin Regional Centre for Underwater Demining, reported one more cluster munition casualty from 1999, in addition to the eight identified by NPA during a research study in 2006. No other details about the casualty were reported.[55]

In Mozambique, a needs assessment of a representative sample of mine/ERW survivors was completed by HI and the survivor network RAVIM (Rede para Assistência às Vítimas de Minas) in 2013, in partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs. The survivor survey, conducted in two provinces, did not identify the type of munition or explosive device that caused injuries.[56]

Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone have not reported on efforts to survey and assess the needs of cluster munition victims.

Coordination and plans

Victim assistance coordination and planning in 2010–2014

Coordination and collaboration

States Parties should integrate the implementation of the victim assistance into existing coordination mechanisms, such as those created under the CRPD (according to Action #23 of the Vientiane Action Plan), or, if there were no such mechanisms, establish a coordination mechanism within one year of the convention’s entry into force for that State Party.

However, the challenge in many States Parties where such mechanisms did exist was that the relevant coordination bodies were too weak to coordinate effectively. Therefore, victim assistance coordination could not be effectively integrated into these systems. This has been the case in states including Afghanistan, BiH, Lao PDR, and Lebanon.

Similarly, a study by HI in 2014 noted, “In some cases, the DPOs movement itself faces difficulties in coordination at the national level, in which case some [survivors’ organizations] may prefer to work separately.”[57]

Afghanistan planned to establish a national disability council or federation of disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs), but this has not been achieved.[58] While there are many coordination groups for specific disability-related issues, there has been no functioning, unified coordination mechanism.[59] Guidelines for the constitution of a national disability rights body were developed, but not implemented.[60] The Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs & Disabled (MoLSAMD) led efforts to revive the national disability rights body but was not successful due to the different interests of key actors.[61]

There were no mine, cluster munition, and other ERW survivors’ representative organizations on the National Council for Persons with Disabilities in BiH,which includes 10 representatives of ministries and 10 representatives of persons with disabilities.[62] A collective of NGOs, including one representing mine/ERW survivors, reported in 2014 that the national council “does not constitute an independent mechanism” in accordance with Article 33 of the CRPD.[63] According to another report, many DPOs did not consider the council inclusive or representative and reported that, as of 2014, the council had yet to show results for persons with disabilities.[64]

In Lao PDR, the National Committee for Disabled People and Elderly (NCDE) is the main disability coordination body, but the disability sector requires far greater organization and international support than the NCDE provides. There are no official disability coordination meetings for all stakeholders.[65] In 2014, DPOs reported problems with disability coordination, including frequent changes of designated disability focal points within ministries due to staff turnover, and low funding for DPOs that obstructed them from representing their members at a policy level.[66]

The National Council of Persons with Disabilities in Lebanon does not have any executive power despite its responsibility for disability social policy.[67]

National plans and strategies

Under Action #24 of the Vientiane Action Plan, States Parties without a comprehensive national plan of action should commit to adopting one that is consistent with the fulfillment of victim assistance obligations under the convention. States Parties with a plan should have adapted it to fulfill the convention.[68] This commitment had no timeframe, but was nonetheless successfully undertaken by most States Parties (see table).

Albania and Croatia adopted national victim assistance plans in 2010. Chad adopted a plan in 2012 that was extended in 2013. Lebanon introduced a victim assistance strategy as part of its 2011–2020 Mine Action National Strategy. BiH revised its victim assistance strategy (a sub-strategy of its mine action strategy) in 2012 and included references to obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Guinea-Bissau reported a national victim assistance plan in December 2013. After a period of several years planning, Lao PDR adopted a victim assistance strategy for the NRA in March 2014. Mozambique developed a national plan for victim assistance in 2013, as a component of its National Disability Plan, but it has yet to be officially adopted or put into use.

Role of survivors

The participation of cluster munition victims was essential to the development and adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and their full and active inclusion remains a core principle of the convention and a legal obligation for States Parties. The convention requires that States Parties “closely consult with and actively involve cluster munition victims and their representative organisations”[69] while fulfilling victim assistance obligations. The Vientiane Action Plan holds that States Parties must actively involve cluster munition victims (Action #23) and their representative organizations in the work of the convention, placing responsibility on all States Parties—not just those with cluster munition victims—for promoting the participation of cluster munition victims.

Since 2010, the trend regarding survivor participation has been positive; in general, there has been an increase in the involvement of survivors in service provision, coordination, and policy creation.

Survivor networks, peer support organizations, and DPOs have taken on an increasingly important role in providing services to survivors. Survivors and other persons with disabilities are involved in victim assistance activities in nine States Parties with known cluster munition victims, including through the provision of ongoing services, such as prosthetics or peer support. For example, the ICRC Afghan Physical Rehabilitation Project was managed by persons with disabilities. The rehabilitation project maintained a policy of “positive discrimination,” employing and training only people with disabilities.[70] In many States Parties (including Albania, Afghanistan, BiH, Croatia, Lao PDR, and Mozambique) peer support work was carried out by survivors.

No survivor involvement in victim assistance activities was identified in Guinea-Bissau, Montenegro, or Sierra Leone.

Since the first Meeting of States Parties and the adoption of the Vientiane Action Plan in 2010, the participation of survivors in national coordination mechanisms has increased in a number of states. Survivors were included in Lao PDR’s Technical Working Group on Victim Assistance.[71] Survivors and their representative organizations participated in meetings of Croatia’s national victim assistance coordinating body. The representation and participation of persons with disabilities on Iraq’s national disability commission was included in the law mandating its establishment after advocacy efforts by the Iraq Alliance for Disability Organizations and other members of civil society.[72] In Lebanon, the National Steering Committee on Victim Assistance, coordinated by LMAC, involves national victim assistance, NGO service providers, and relevant government ministries.[73]

Progress has also been made on including survivors in consultations about the creation of policies, national victim assistance plans, and legislative measures that affect them. Survivors have been consulted or otherwise involved in the creation of national victim assistance plans in Albania, BiH, Croatia, Lao PDR, and Mozambique. In Lao PDR, representatives of survivor groups participate in consultative processes, special events, and ERW sector-wide working group meetings.[74] In Albania, a survivor network leader is also the representative of a political party that specifically represents persons with disabilities.[75]

As highlighted by Actions #30 and #31 of the Vientiane Action Plan,cluster munition victims should be considered as experts in victim assistance and included on government delegations to international meetings as well as in all activities related to the convention. There is significant scope for increased representation of survivors in international fora and the CMC has called on States Parties to make a concentrated effort to include survivors on national delegations to Meetings of States Parties and Review Conferences. Since 2010, a few states, including BiH, Croatia, and Iraq, have included a survivor as a member of their delegation to international meetings of the convention. Many more cluster munition victims participated in international meetings as part of the CMC delegation.

Progress in providing adequate assistance

The obligation for States Parties responsible for cluster munition victims to adequately provide assistance including medical care, rehabilitation, and psychological support, as well as social and economic inclusion of victims, stands at the core of the convention’s victim assistance provisions.[76] Such assistance should be age- and gender-sensitive.[77] Most States Parties have seen concrete activities undertaken to improve the delivery of adequate assistance since they committed to the measures established in the Vientiane Action Plan.

This summary overview covers developments in States Parties, while data on the provision of victim assistance in signatory states and non-signatories is available online in relevant Monitor country profiles. More details on services is available through the Monitor's Equal Basis report, which provides information on efforts to fulfill responsibilities in promoting the rights of persons with disabilities—including the survivors of landmines, cluster munitions, and other ERW—as well as in providing assistance for activities that address the needs of survivors and other persons with disabilities with similar needs in 33 countries that have obligations and commitments to enforce those rights.[78]

International organizations and NGOs carried out many, if not most, of the steps that have been taken to provide victim assistance with the backing of donor funding and in coordination with relevant government agencies and ministries.[79] These services provided the most direct and measurable assistance to persons with disabilities and war-injured persons, including cluster munition survivors. For their part, States Parties contributed by coordinating and sometimes monitoring those activities. They also provided assistance to survivors through existing healthcare, rehabilitation, and social welfare systems without having the capacity to measure the scale or impact of state-run services that reach cluster munition victims.

Availability, accessibility, and sustainability of services

Under Action #25 of the Vientiane Action Plan, States Parties committed to take immediate action to increase availability and accessibility of services, particularly in remote and rural areas where they are most often absent. In 2010, the Monitor reported on victim assistance provision in countries with cluster munition casualties, finding it to be dire in most states at that time. Among the 12 countries that are now States Parties with cluster munition victims, the Monitor found insufficient emergency medical capacity, few available services, available services that were not able to meet demand, and limited access to victim assistance services of any kind, especially for survivors in rural areas.

Despite challenges, the Monitor has identified many examples of progress in 2010–2014 in the provision of victim assistance by States Parties. The following are some highlights from the period:

• Afghanistan saw improvements in the availability of inclusive education as a result of improved physical accessibility to buildings, including schools and mosques, in urban areas following NGO activities and a national survey, which lead to a better understanding of needs. The Ministry of Health’s priority system and national development budget have been linked to a list of needs, while the ICRC and NGOs have worked to build national staff capacity.
• Albania maintained a sustainable physical rehabilitation training program. The prosthetics department, in a hospital in the cluster munition-affected Kukes region, obtained much-needed rehabilitation materials to meet increasing demand from beneficiaries in other regions.
• In BiH, more local and national NGO projects were established for economic and employment assistance to adapt to the withdrawal of international actors.
• In Croatia, the availability of emergency medical care improved with a revised contractual system in place for service providers. Psychological support services increased with the opening of a new facility that continued to improve the availability of short-term assistance.
• In Guinea-Bissau, the availability of prosthetics services increased with the opening of a rehabilitation center. In 2012, the first full year of operations of the center, more prosthetics services were provided and remained the point of greatest progress during the period.
• In Iraq,the national healthcare budget increased and, in 2013, the Iraqi and Kurdistan Ministries of Health assumed greater responsibility for the management and financing of physical rehabilitation.
• In Lao PDR, an outreach program established in 2009 has improved access to prosthetics services. Since 2012, NGO-supported first aid training, rehabilitation services, and wheelchair production has increased. Peer support activities and psychosocial assistance increased in some cluster munition-affected regions in 2013–2015.
• In Lebanon, active but often poorly funded private organizations made most of the efforts to assist persons with disabilities, while the mine action center increased its support by funding prosthetics directly for survivors in need and by ensuring they were registered to receive health and rehabilitative care.
• In Montenegro, the national health insurance system explicitly mandated free access to medical care and physical rehabilitation services for mine/ERW survivors in 2012.
• In Mozambique, as a result of programs targeting the population of persons with disabilities more generally, there were minimal increases in access to vocational training and education. All rehabilitation centers suspended the production of new prostheses in 2012, but then resumed in 2013. Peer support has increased since 2013 through survivor network outreach.

Serval programs and projects reported that the services provided did not discriminate on the basis of age or gender, however information remained limited. Many physical rehabilitation programs and economic inclusion programs disaggregated data on beneficiaries according to sex, but most did not report details indicating consideration of a gender-sensitive approach to implementation.

Many challenges remain and are most apparent in States Parties that have not managed to effectively develop much needed services in areas with gaps or failed to replace services and programs that were reduced or closed due to changes in international funding.

In Chad, no significant changes have been reported in the accessibility, availability, or quality of victim assistance services. Rehabilitation was inadequately available and there was a persistent lack of physiotherapists, psychosocial support, vocational training, and economic reintegration opportunities for survivors and persons with disabilities. There were also no significant reported changes in the accessibility, availability, or quality of victim assistance services in Sierra Leone.

Sometimes, state systems that were intended to reach persons with disabilities did not come close to fulfilling their objectives. This was the case with quota systems for employment of persons with disabilities. For example, in Afghanistan, although persons with disabilities should comprise 3% of state employees according to the law, 94% of those places were not filled and, often due to improper practices, work opportunities were taken away from persons with disabilities.[80] Disability legislation in Lebanon also stipulates a 3% quota to hire persons with disabilities for all employers. However, there was no evidence the law was enforced and it has made little or no impact.[81] The labor law of Lao PDR states that priority must be given to persons with disabilities for job placement in both the private and the public sector, but there was little awareness of this legislation among employers and no enforcement mechanisms.^[82]

The principle of non-discrimination

States Parties must not discriminate against or among cluster munition victims, or between cluster munition victims and those who have injuries or disabilities from other causes, according to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[83] During the first five years of the convention, the Monitor has not identified any discrimination specifically in favor of cluster munition victims by States Parties with Article 5 obligations.[84] Despite this, concerns about positive discrimination in the allocation of services to cluster munition victims were raised regularly by a small number of States Parties and in convention documents.

Monitor research shows that for most countries where discrimination between persons with disabilities was reported, it has been due to the privileges and special status often accorded to war veterans with disabilities, or sometimes to people from state-recognized national DPOs with influence in decision-making mechanisms.

In most countries—not only States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions—war veterans with disabilities are assigned a privileged status above that of civilian war survivors and other persons with disabilities, particularly with respect to financial allowances and other state benefits. Since 2010, this disparity continues to be a concern in countries including Afghanistan, BiH, and Lao PDR.

In 2013 and 2014, through legislative reform Albania began to tackle regulations that gave particular benefits and concessions to certain groups of persons with disabilities (persons with disabilities that have work-related disability, as well as visual impairment, and paraplegia or quadriplegia) that were not available to other persons with disabilities, including cluster munition victims. However, while making these reforms, changes were made to the system for social benefits that left many amputees without even the minor financial benefits that they previously had.[85]

In taking a rights-based approach to victim assistance, States Parties need to be mindful of the requirement not to remove existing rights, as set out in Article 4.4 of the CRPD: “Nothing in the present Convention shall affect any provisions which are more conducive to the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities and which may be contained in the law of a State Party or international law in force for that State.”[86]

Monitor reporting showed that discrimination in States Parties also manifested informally, on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity, and other prejudices.

Reporting on progress

Under Article 7 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, States Parties are required to report on the status and progress of implementation of all victim assistance obligations. This reporting requirement is both a legal obligation and an opportunity. Victim assistance reporting under the convention is obligatory, unlike the Mine Ban Treaty’s voluntary reporting on victim assistance.

States that have made important strides in addressing the needs of cluster munition victims can share this progress with other States Parties, providing a positive example and strengthening the norm for victim assistance. States that continue to face challenges in addressing needs can clearly present what those challenges are and how technical and financial support from the international community might help overcome those challenges.

Signatory DRC included victim assistance information in its voluntary Article 7 report in 2011, becoming the first state not party to do so. In 2012, DRC submitted another voluntary report. In 2013, DRC and one other area, Western Sahara, both submitted voluntary Article 7 reports with information on victim assistance. No such reporting was noted for 2014.

All nine States Parties with cluster munition victims that submitted their Article 7 reports after entry into force have included information on victim assistance; most provided detailed information or new factual reporting.[87] The exceptions were Sierra Leone, which did not attach Form H, and Chad and Guinea-Bissau, neither of which have submitted an initial report.

Applicable national and international law

States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitionsare legally bound to implement adequate victim assistance in accordance with applicable international humanitarian and human rights law. [88] Applicable international law includes the CRPD, the Mine Ban Treaty, and the Convention on Conventional Weapons Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War. Other instruments with relevant provisions that should be used to support the implementation of the victim assistance obligations of the Convention on Cluster Munitions include the Geneva Conventions, the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions has no definition or measure of what “adequate” assistance requires. However, applicable international law offers more advanced measures, including requirements such as the “highest attainable standard of healthcare.”

States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions have yet to elaborate the specific application of international humanitarian law related to protection of civilians, particularly the provisions relevant to people who have been injured and to persons with disabilities.[89] However, such provisions in the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols, as well as customary law, may be relevant, particularly in the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, which are among the States Parties with the largest numbers of victims and where conflict was ongoing.

States Parties’ understanding of their international humanitarian and human rights law requirements has mostly focused on a rights-based approach with particular emphasis on integrating efforts to fulfill those obligations with the implementation of the CRPD, and using national structures developed for coordination of the CRPD where they exist and are functioning adequately.

By the end of 2014, all but one of the States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions with cluster munition victims had ratified the CRPD. Many of those States Parties with cluster munition victims ratified the CRPD after the Convention on Cluster Munitions had entered into force: Afghanistan (September 2012), Albania (November 2013), BiH (March 2010), Croatia (August 2007), Iraq (March 2013), Guinea-Bissau (September 2014), Lao PDR (September 2009), Mozambique (January 2012), Montenegro (November 2009), and Sierra Leone (October 2010). Lebanon signed the convention but has not yet ratified.

In addition to international law, the Convention on Cluster Munitions’ requirement for national implementation legislation means that States Parties’ laws should ensure “the full realisation of the rights of all cluster munition victims,” as called for under Article 5. The Vientiane Action Plan specified that within one year of entry into force, States Parties were supposed to review their national laws and policies to ensure that they are consistent with their victim assistance obligations under the convention.

States Parties should have revised any inconsistent legislation by 2015. However, the process of changing national legislation often requires decisions and action of government and political groups. These groups may not understand or be aware of the Convention on Cluster Munitions victim assistance provisions. Also, those that became States Parties toward the last part of the action plan period may not have been able to progress very far with this objective. Most States Parties did not report on this objective specifically, but rather reported changes to legislation which incidentally brought them closer to fulfilling the obligations of victim assistance and the rights of cluster munition victims.