GENEVA, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- Palestine has joined Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), the Information Office of the UN at Geneva said Thursday.
Thus it has become the 94th High Contracting Party to the Protocol, the Office said, adding that it also joined the framework Convention in 2015 along with Protocol I on Non-Detectable Fragments and Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons.
Mouayed Saleh, President-designate of the 2018 Conference of the High Contracting Parties to Protocol V, welcomed the news of the Palestine's accession.
"I warmly welcome the States of Palestine's accession to CCW Protocol V and encourage more States to consider acceding to the Convention and its Protocols. I also invite those States that have yet to join to participate in the work of the Convention as observers," Saleh stated.
The purpose of the Convention and its Protocols is to ban or restrict the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.
Protocol V establishes that States which participate in armed conflict have a responsibility to assist with the clearance of explosive remnants of war resulting from the conflict.
