Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern is to seek formal approval from the Government next month to set up a standing national committee on international humanitarian law.
The Irish Committee of the Red Cross and the Department of Foreign Affairs will be involved in the committee, and other departments such as Defence, Education and Justice, as well as the Attorney General's office, may also take part.
Known also as the law of war or the law of armed conflict, international humanitarian law is a set of rules that seeks to protect people who are not participating in hostilities and to restrict the means and methods of modern warfare.
The standing committee will mainly formulate recommendations and proposals for incorporating humanitarian law treaties into Irish law.
The International Committee of the Red Cross promotes the establishment of national committees as best practice in implementing and promoting international humanitarian law.
The committee's first task will be to commence work on the preparation of legislative and other measures to ban cluster munitions, in line with the terms of an international convention expected to emerge from an international diplomatic conference on the issue at Croke Park, Dublin, on May 19th-30th.
Mr Ahern's Cabinet colleagues are understood to be fully supportive of his initiative, which was first mooted more that 18 months ago. He presented a draft memorandum to Government last month on the Croke Park conference.
The Programme for Government includes a commitment to campaign for a complete ban on the use of cluster munitions.
The proposed Irish legislation will set an example to other states, although it will have no immediate practical implications in Ireland, which does not possess any cluster munitions.
A spokesman for the Defence Forces confirmed that they had never had any such weapons, nor were there any plans to acquire them. "We don't have the aircraft to use them," he added.
The Dublin diplomatic conference aims to negotiate a convention that will prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.
The impetus to negotiate such a text originated in Oslo in February 2007, when 46 states adopted a declaration that committed them to conclude by 2008 a legally-binding international instrument to "prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians".
Ireland has taken a lead role in the work to agree an international instrument and is a member of the core group of the "Oslo Process" with Austria, the Holy See, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway and Peru.
There were over 130 countries in attendance at the most recent meeting in Vienna last December. There will be one further meeting in Wellington, capital of New Zealand, on February 18th-22nd, before the Dublin conference.
The key challenge will be to reach agreement on the most comprehensive possible text. The Government and a number of other participants would favour an absolute ban, but others are not sure if this is achievable at this time.
For the sake of effectiveness and credibility it will be necessary to secure the support of a number of those countries whose militaries currently possess cluster munitions.
Mr Ahern told The Irish Times: "The diplomatic conference in Croke Park in May will try and negotiate a new instrument of international humanitarian law banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. It is intended that this will also provide for co-operation and assistance for survivors and affected communities, clearance of affected areas and destruction of stockpiles."
Cluster munitions or cluster bombs are air-dropped or ground-launched munitions that eject a number of smaller submunitions or "bomblets".
Cluster bombs pose a particular threat to civilians because they have a wide area of effect, and have consistently left behind a large number of unexploded bomblets, which remain dangerous for decades after the end of a conflict.
