Belgium Takes a Leading Role to Ban Uranium Weapons

Being the first to ban landmines and cluster bombs, Belgium is the first to ban uranium weapons too.
Belgium Takes a Leading Role to Ban Uranium Weapons
Dirk Van der Maelen delivers a speech during a plenary session of the Chamber. (Herwing Vergult/AFP/Getty Images)
6/24/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/Belgium72206180.jpg" alt="Dirk Van der Maelen delivers a speech during a plenary session of the Chamber.    (Herwing Vergult/AFP/Getty Images)" title="Dirk Van der Maelen delivers a speech during a plenary session of the Chamber.    (Herwing Vergult/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1827733"/></a>
Dirk Van der Maelen delivers a speech during a plenary session of the Chamber.    (Herwing Vergult/AFP/Getty Images)

BRUSSELS—After being the first country to ban land mines and cluster bombs, on June 21, Belgium again distinguished itself by becoming the first country to ban uranium weapons.

On March the 7th, 2007, the Belgian Chamber Commission on National Defense voted unanimously in favor of banning the production, use, storage, trade and transport of ammunition and armor that contain depleted uranium, or any other industrially manufactured uranium.

On June the 21th 2009, after a stipulated two-year grace period, that law finally entered into force. The two years was used to promote the ban outside Belgium in the hopes of getting other countries to follow suit.

Uranium weapons are known to damage the central nervous system, trigger different types of cancers and they cause permanent damage to the genetic structure of all beings. They are also responsible for long term damage to nature and the environment. Moreover, the victims of these weapons are mainly civilian.

Author of the proposition, Dirk Van der Maelen (Flemish Socialist Party), is very happy with the outcome. He pointed out that when Belgium took the initiative to ban land mines and cluster bombs in 1995, the international community soon followed. The result was the Ottawa Treaty, signed by 156 countries and the Oslo Treaty, signed by 94 countries.

Van der Maelen now hopes that this law will eventually result in another international treaty to free the world of these kinds of weapons. On his personal website he stated:

“The support for a ban of these kind of weapons is getting bigger. In Costa Rica, Japan, New Zealand and in a number of Scandinavian countries Chamber Commission members have now also entered a proposition to ban Uranium weapons. I hereby call to our Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht to search for allies and to use all diplomatic means to strive for an international treaty.”

The decision is the result of more than three years of hard work, direct action and lobbying by the Belgian Coalition Ban Uranium Weapons. The ICBUW is convinced that Belgium will soon be followed by other countries to ban the use of uranium weapons. The European Parliament has also repeatedly called for an international ban.

To put this new law in the spotlight, Chairman of the Chamber Commission Patrick Dewael, opened a photo exhibition about the human dramas caused by the use of uranium weapons. The exhibition shows black and white pictures taken by the famous Japanese photographer Naomi Toyoda, who documented the long term effects of the uranium weapons deployed in Iraq.

The director of the institute of cancer research from the city of Basra in Iraq gave a speech about how local civilians suffer from permanent damage caused by the use of these weapons. Van der Maelen and Ria Verjauw of ICBUW also spoke at the event.