This Friday night, Québécois pop star Céline Dion is holding a concert at our diplomatic negotiations venue, the massive Croke Park football stadium. Every time I walk down the corridors I see the stage being erected and her tune for the Titanic film comes into my head. We have to be out of here by midday on Friday meaning the treaty must be concluded by tomorrow at the latest, before it is translated and adopted. There are still a lot of issues to be resolved, however, and I really hope this ship doesn’t sink before it it reaches its destination. Read more

(Dublin: 26 May 08) Two interesting side events took place during the lunchbreak at the Dublin Conference today. Read more

All participants to the Dublin conference were offered free tickets to see the Ireland vs Serbia football match at Croke Park this Saturday. Read more

On Friday, campaigners decided to draw more attention to the United States, described by the newsletter as an “elephant not in the room” at these negotiations to create the cluster bomb ban treaty. I headed over to the US embassy in Dublin around midday with a small, but vocal group including several “US citizens against US cluster bomb policy.” The Iraqi cluster bomb survivors also came, including Ahmed Najem who lost his arm.  Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams did a bunch of media on the United States with articles in the Boston Globe and Reuters.

(Dublin: 22 May 2008) Outside the entrance to the main plenary room I’ve noticed a sign telling the story of “The Big Fight,” a boxing match between then-heavy weight champion Muhammed Ali and Al “Blue” Lewis that took place in 1972 at Croke Park, the venue for our Dublin conference on cluster bombs. While we made some progress on victim assistance today, deliberations were tense and difficult on other parts of the ban treaty text and it appears we are indeed headed into our very own “Big Fight.” Read more

(Dublin: 21 May 2008) The formal talks appeared to be progressing well on the third day of the Dublin Conference. The campaigners present in Dublin, especially from Africa and the Americas, are making significant progress through a concerted lobby effort, but the outcome of the conference is still unknown. Read more