Explosive weapon

• 1. Introduction

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  An explosive weapon is a weapon that uses an explosive to project blast and fragmentation outward from a single point of detonation. That simple definition covers a vast range of devices, from a hand-held grenade to a multiple rocket launcher capable of saturating an entire neighborhood. What unites them is the physics of the explosion itself, and what divides them are questions of scale, legality, and who gets hurt. According to the British NGO Action on Armed Violence, 91 percent of direct casualties when explosive weapons are used in populated areas are civilians. That figure, recorded in 2012, is the number this documentary keeps returning to. How did international law come to govern these weapons? What happens when they fail to explode? And who is pushing back against their use in the places where people live?

• 2. Ordnance and Improvisation

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  Explosive weapons split into two broad families based on how they are made. Manufactured military munitions are called explosive ordnance. Homemade devices built outside standard military supply chains are called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Both categories, along with certain types of explosive ordnance, are sometimes grouped under the popular term "bomb," though that term carries no precise legal meaning. Within explosive ordnance, a further divide separates light weapons from heavy ones. Grenades, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, anti-tank guided missile launchers, man-portable air-defense systems, and mortars with a caliber of less than 100 mm are classified as light weapons. Aerial bombs, multiple rocket launchers, artillery, and larger mortars fall into the heavy category. That distinction matters because heavy weapons scatter blast and fragmentation across wider areas. In the common practice of states, explosive weapons are generally reserved for the military and for situations of armed conflict. They are rarely turned to for domestic policing.

• 3. When Weapons Fail

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  Not every explosive weapon detonates when it is supposed to. When these devices fail to function as designed, they are left behind as unexploded ordnance, known by the abbreviation UXO. UXO transforms a battlefield into a long-term hazard that outlasts any ceasefire. Under Amended Protocol II and Protocol V to the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, states that use explosive weapons carry a formal responsibility. They must record and keep information about where their weapons were used, what types were deployed, and in what quantities. They must then share that information with the parties who control any territory that could be affected. They are also obligated to help with the physical removal of the unexploded threat. The two protocols together do not ban any specific weapon; instead, they create a chain of accountability that follows the weapon even after the shooting stops.

• 4. A History of Prohibition

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  The Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 is one of the earliest international agreements to ban a specific type of explosive weapon. It prohibits the use of certain explosive rifle projectiles. That prohibition did not stay frozen in the nineteenth century. Over time it evolved into a broader ban on exploding ammunition that now applies to all states as a matter of customary international humanitarian law, binding even those that never signed the original declaration. Two more targeted treaties followed much later. The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty prohibits anti-personnel landmines for the states that are parties to it. The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions bans cluster munitions for its signatories. All uses of explosive weapons in armed conflict, whether covered by a specific treaty or not, are also subject to the general rules of international humanitarian law that govern how hostilities may be conducted.

• 5. Populated Areas and Rising Casualties

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  Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, pointed to two of the ICRC's key operations in 2009 as vivid examples of the consequences when heavy or highly explosive weapons are used in densely populated areas. Those operations were in the Gaza Strip and in Sri Lanka. His concern echoed a statement from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who expressed increasing alarm at the humanitarian impact of explosive weapons used in exactly those kinds of settings. Action on Armed Violence, the British NGO that tracks these patterns, recorded a separate trend beyond conventional military use. Their data showed the number of civilians killed or injured by car bombs, suicide bombs, and other improvised explosive devices rising by 70 percent in the three years leading up to 2013. That increase in IED use ran alongside a dramatic rise in suicide bombing globally, a pattern the organization charted across multiple years of data collection. The International Network on Explosive Weapons, known as INEW, is a partnership of NGOs calling for immediate action to prevent human suffering from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, keeping pressure on governments to move beyond the prohibitions already on the books.