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Depleted uranium & the UN



On Sat, 5 Feb 2000, Buri wrote:

> ...I would note that DU has been condemned by the United
> Nations Human Rights Tribunal (August 1996 Session of the UN Commission on
> Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and
> Protection of Minorities).  The Human Rights Commission has requested that
> the Secretary General prepare a written report on DU and certain other
> weapons of mass destruction (Resolution 1997/36, which also established a UN
> Rapporteur to take over the study of DU and other weapons of mass
> destruction on behalf of the UN).

A couple of brief corrections to this section of Buri's posting on DU.
Buri repeats the oft-repeated claims that DU has been condemned by a UN
Sub-commission, which has classified it as a WMD. Unfortunately, this is
not quite accurate.

The Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of
Minorities in Resn 1996/16 (29 August) in its commentary on DU merely:
"[u]rges all States to be guided in their national policies by the need
to curb the production and the spread of weapons of mass destruction or
with indiscriminate effect, in particular .. weaponry containing depleted
uranium.."

As anyone familiar with the language of UN commissions will be able to
tell, this falls far short of a condemnation of DU - merely a call for a
curb on production and proliferation. 

Nor does it say that DU is a WMD; rather it classifies DU as one of the
"weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect" - ie it could 
be the latter but not the former. 

Sub-commission resn 1997/36 of 28 August 1997 makes no further comments on
DU (which is why it was passed unanimously). Furthermore, the 
sub-commission dropped the issue after that date. The only subsequent
commentary from UN human rights bodies on DU has been the
latest report of the human rights special rapporteur on Yugoslavia, who
notes DU as one of his many areas of concern.

Just to clarify - of course, this makes no difference to the argument
about the health effects of DU; just that one shouldn't claim the UN has
(yet) accepted these arguments.

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