Propuesta final: SOBE ADRENALINE RUSH

Explicit theoretical analysis of the dynamics of international efforts on cluster munitions was relatively rare until the Oslo process concluded in 2008. Until then, the bulk of peer-reviewed analysis published on cluster munitions was legally or

historically oriented, or was situated in policy research rather than in formal academic IR (see Chapter 2 section 3 for a brief overview).

Petrova’s work is a prominent exception. Her examination of NGO advocacy on cluster munitions (Petrova, 2007a) as well as the influence of Belgium and Norway on the development of new international norms on AP mines and cluster munitions (2007b) were conventional constructivist in flavour, and were based on detailed research

including interviews with policy makers and civil society activists in several countries. Petrova’s work indicated a high degree of crossover of individuals in government and civil society in Belgium and Norway from landmine to cluster munition campaigning, and some recurrent political dynamics. However, Petrova’s studies from this period concluded in scope before the Oslo process reached fruition.

Soon after the Dublin negotiations, Rappert and Moyes analysed the notion of unacceptable harm in the Oslo process and its alleged implications for regulating other

2008 , 2009b). They were discursive in perspective, viewing cluster munitions as objects of a subjective and socially mediated discourse deconstructed through analysis and argumentation—a process eventually resulting in the weapon’s de-legitimisation. Both authors had been involved in international research and campaigning on cluster munitions, and drew on their respective experiences although other scholars soon contested aspects of their analysis (Rosert, 2009). Subsequently, Moyes and Rappert clarified some elements, especially concerning the nature of the definition of cluster munitions developed in the CCM’s negotiation (for which Moyes had been the CMC’s main spokesperson) (2009a). They later argued for the relevance of aspects of their analysis to domains such as enhancing civilian protection from explosive weapons (2010), something others such as Di Ruzza (2008), Borrie and Brehm (2011) also suggested.

A comprehensive historical account of international efforts to ban cluster munitions exists (Borrie, 2009), building on work published over several years (2007a , 2007b , 2008 , Borrie and Thornton, 2008), but it is not situated within a formal IR theory framework. Nor are most earlier texts about international developments in the field of anti-personnel weapons regimes by SIPRI (1973 , 1975 , 1978 , 1979), Krepon (1974), Prokosch (1975 , 1976 , 1995b , 1995a) and Wiebe (2003).

A number of legal analyses have been produced concerning cluster munition restriction (Boothby, 2005 , Breitegger, 2005 , Maresca, 2006 , Nystuen, 2009 , Wiebe, 2008 , Woudenberg and Wormgoor, 2010) including a detailed multi-author

commentary on the CCM published in 2010 (Nystuen and Casey-Maslen, 2010). However, these studies also have little to say about IR theory, although some of these

studies conclude that over time the CCM will have a normative effect de-legitimising cluster munition use and possession beyond the treaty’s membership. This implies recognition of intersubjective factors alongside positivistic aspects of international law.

A number of IR scholars have begun to publish their explanations for the CCM’s emergence. Although these studies appear largely to share a social

constructionist ontology, there are significant differences in emphasis. For example, Wisotzki (2009) and Garcia (2011) each argued that the Oslo process succeeded because it built up the impression amongst many states that cluster munitions were highly prone to indiscriminate use, which de-legitimised these to the point they could be banned. Such an interpretation has developed support from certain scholars working in the nuclear weapons field (Lewis, 2009 , Berry et al., 2010). Petrova, in contrast argued the major motivating factor behind the CCM was that:

“Whereas perceptions of military utility are not indefinitely malleable, in the cases of anti- personnel landmines and cluster munitions, they have nevertheless undergone a change from widely held assumptions about their military necessity and effectiveness to a view that they are outdated weapons of limited military utility” (Petrova, 2010 5).

Both lines of argumentation are plausible. However, as will be shown, utility and acceptability arguments were not rival concepts isolated from one another. Rather, these utility and acceptability considerations were intrinsically linked aspects of the same contestation in which changes of generally accepted meaning about one could affect the other. It is only possible to understand the CCM’s emergence by recognising this dynamic. Significantly, CMC activists themselves considered that they needed to address these multiple lines of contestation coherently in view of the connections

“An initial point of entry for critical thinking about cluster munitions within the CMC was the purported military utility of cluster munitions. Predominantly it was always the humanitarian harm side of the effects equation which was campaigned on. It’s simply not true that states decided cluster munitions have no military utility, or that they were persuaded so totally. Spain, for instance, produced electronically-fused cluster

munitions, and stated [late in the Oslo process] that getting rid of such useful, current weapons was very costly for them.”12

Bolton and Nash analysed aspects of international efforts on cluster munitions, drawing in part from the latter’s experience as CMC coordinator (2010), arguing that:

“Rather than trying to win the game on the terrain of military utility, where states would always have an abstract and hypothetical advantage, the [CMC’s] response was to question and criticise military utility and to demand concrete examples of military benefit actually derived from use of cluster munitions and, in the absence of such examples, continually to gather evidence of humanitarian harm. This approach was also underpinned by the inclusion of survivors and other individuals from affected communities” (2010 180).

Bolton and Nash’s article also lends some consideration to structural factors enabling the Oslo process to emerge, including the CCW. However, their analysis of cluster munition reframing among states is cursory, and they do not define what constitutes this reframing.

Scholars influenced by critical theory (Krause, 2011 , Mathur, 2011) and

Copenhagen School securitisation concepts (Cooper, 2011) have raised issues about the significance of international humanitarian treaties established on cluster munitions and AP mines by placing them within constructs such as humanitarian arms control. Cooper,

for example, wrote that “the current regime of truth constructed around humanitarian arms control is not only extraordinarily ahistorical but is one that depends on a rather partial understanding of the way the relationship between power, ethics, and specific models of economy have been expressed throughout the history of arms regulation” (2011 141). Yet humanitarian arguments in arms negotiations have a long history dating back to at least the nineteenth century (Bring, 1987). In negotiations between states these humanitarian concerns were usually subordinated to national security concerns such as balanced arms reductions, verification, compliance and risk of loss of national security or other sensitive information prior to the MBT (Mathews and McCormack, 1999), which is one reason why the MBT is significant.

Cooper also suggested that the AP mine and cluster munition bans had as much to do with factors such as developments in military technology and the nature of the arms trade as they did with humanitarian NGO efforts. In this conception, the Ottawa and Oslo processes are examples of “arms control from below within the logic of militarism from above” (Cooper and Mutimer, 2011 16). Seen in terms of the agent- structure debate, activist agency to convince some states to outlaw certain weapons worked because it went with the grain of broader international developments, not because it transformed them. In particular, the increasing emphasis on humanitarian protection and bringing about democratising change through Western-led military interventions from the 1990s onward—wars of choice rather than Cold War existential survival—were significant systemic shifts.