Public Lecture at LSE

Justice: A Priority Even in War

With the critical Dublin Conference fast approaching, former soldier and post conflict specialist Rae McGrath delivers a powerful public lecture at the London School of Economics on the critical role civil society must play in the campaign to ban cluster munitions.

On the screen a disturbing image flashes in front of the audience. Lying on a hospital bed is Dam, a seven year old boy from Laos. Splattered in blood and with bandages covering deep lacerations all over his body, Dam’s injuries are a brutal example of the damage inflicted by cluster munitions. Many in the audience look visibly shocked. “I’m afraid I make no apologies for showing you this picture,” says Rae McGrath, tonight’s speaker and the International Spokesperson on Cluster Munitions for Handicap International. “It’s important that everyone sees the indiscriminate devastation these weapons are designed to cause.” 

The direct, no-nonsense approach is typical of McGrath. Having served as a military engineer in the British Army for 18 years, he is no stranger to the brutality of war. However, with his scruffy hair and earrings it is also clear McGrath is not your average former soldier. “The Army don’t really like people like me,” he says, smiling. “I think ‘tree-hugger’ or ‘troublemaker’ is probably how they would describe me these days.”

Determined to utilise his technical expertise as a deminer, McGrath began working as a post-conflict specialist in the mid 1980s, working first in the Darfur Province of Sudan and then establishing community-based landmine clearance programs in Afghanistan. He has since been at the forefront of the battle to eradicate explosive remnants of war, founding the international NGO, Mines Advisory Group, and later co-founding the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). The latter campaign, famously successful in 1997, won McGrath the title of Nobel Peace Prize Co-Laureate and he gave the Nobel Lecture at the Oslo awards ceremony in 1997.

Tonight McGrath has been invited by the Grimshaw International Relations Club at LSE to talk about the international campaign to ban cluster munitions; a campaign that he argues should be seen as the “continuation of the landmine campaign”. Using an array of props, McGrath explains that cluster munitions are made up of a single canister containing up to several hundred bomblets. These bomblets are designed to be “area weapons” which function by dispersing shrapnel over a wide radius, indiscriminately killing civilians and soldiers. Furthermore, McGrath explains that 5% to 30% of cluster bombs fail to explode and can be found long after a conflict is over on the ground or in trees. In particular, their interesting shape, size and sometimes bright colour can make them especially attractive to children.  

Cluster munitions have been used to devastating effect in a number of recent conflicts, according to McGrath, including the US invasion of Iraq and the Israeli–Lebanon conflict. Indeed it was the conflict in Lebanon that inspired the beginning of the “Oslo Process” in February 2007, in which Norway spearheaded a campaign to bring states and relevant NGOs together to formulate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit cluster munitions by 2008.

McGrath explains that the Oslo Process is now entering its final stage, with over 100 countries gathering in Dublin in mid May to begin final negotiations to bring about a ban. However, he warns that a treaty could be fatally weakened in the interests of a few governments, such as the UK, who are trying to introduce loopholes to weaken the treaty and protect the interests of the arms industry.

It is now, therefore, that McGrath believes civil society must “stand up and be counted”. He says people must realize this campaign is not just about changing arms laws, fundamentally it is about saving lives. He says: “This issue is not about weapons, it is about people and justice. Even during war there must always be an element of justice.”