What is the problem?

Anti-personnel mines are explosive devices placed under, on or near the ground or other surface area and are designed to be detonated by the presence, proximity, or contact of a person.

By design, they do not discriminate between combatants and civilians, and once activated, there is no human control of the application of force.

Anti-personnel landmines were used by most armed forces in the world and for decades and they have claimed victims around the globe.

Emplaced mines not only result in death or long-lasting physical and psychological suffering for survivors, they also deprive families and communities of land that could be put to productive use.

They perpetuate a sense of fear and insecurity long after conflicts end, delay peace processes, can prevent people from being able to return home post-conflict, and impede development.

What is the current situation?

The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 1999. This Convention represents a milestone achievement in the field of humanitarian disarmament. It prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of anti- personnel mines. It requires that each State Party clear anti-personnel mine contamination in areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible and within ten years (Article 5), and destroy stockpiles as soon as possible and within four years (Article 4). Support for victims of anti-personnel mines is also required by the treaty.

A total of 164 states, more than 80% of the total of 197 in the world, have already formally committed to the APMBC as States Parties. One additional state is a signatory, but has yet to ratify the APMBC. The Convention also has a great normative effect on states that are not yet party to it. Thanks to the APMBC, landmine use, production, and trade have dramatically dropped. Furthermore, millions of anti-personnel mines have been destroyed, large areas of contaminated land have been cleared and returned to communities for safe use, and the number of new recorded casualties significantly decreased since the 1990s. However, after a steady decrease, in the last decade we have seen an increase of casualties as a result of mines of an improvised nature. These mines impact a relatively

small number of countries, but NPA remains concerned about any new use of landmines. This includes locally produced mines, also referred to as improvised mines and sometimes referred to under the catch-all term of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). If a munition is victim activated and falls within the definition of the APMBC, it is an anti-personnel mine, and must be cleared as soon as possible and reported in accordance with the Convention’s requirements. It does not matter how these weapons were produced or employed, nor by whom they were laid.

Several countries still have not determined an accurate baseline of landmine contamination and/or efficient land release (i.e. survey and clearance) methodologies to address mined areas. Most notably, evidence-based survey is still not being applied consistently and consequently areas of land are being cleared which do not contain mine-contamination. Slow progress in Article 5 implementation and the large number of states seeking to extend their Article 5 deadlines to complete clearance obligations, are also cause for concern.

The good news is that if up-to-date and efficient survey and efficient methodologies are applied, and the requisite political will and funding mobilised, most affected states and other areas can complete mine clearance in a matter of years, and before 2025, the target set by States Parties at the 2014 Maputo Review Conference and recommitted to at the Fourth Review Conference in Oslo in 2019.

What is NPA’s call?

NPA calls on all states and stakeholders to ensure full implementation of the APMBC. In particular, NPA calls on States Parties to fulfil their Article 5 clearance obligations and Article 4 stockpile destruction obligations as soon as possible. Strong political will is the key to reaching this objective.

Concretely, NPA calls for the following:

• All states should: ratify/accede to the APMBC if not already a State Party.
  
• All states and non-state armed groups should: renounce the use of anti-personnel mines and destroy all stockpiled anti-personnel mines.
  
• Mine-contaminated states should:
  conduct a nationwide survey, if needed, to establish a baseline of mine contamination, including the location and extent of mined areas.
  
  Establish an ambitious national strategy and work plan for completion of their clearance obligations under Article 5 of the APMBC.
  
  Build the necessary mine action institutions and capacities, and establish policies, laws, and national mine action standards that enable the application of best practice in all aspects of their national mine action programme, including land release methodology.
  
  Ensure the application of best practice in land release i.e. high-quality, evidence- based survey to determine the location and size of mined areas, and to help ensure that full clearance only takes place in areas that are confirmed as contaminated. This has significant potential for improved efficiency and swifter Article 5 treaty compliance.
  
  Identify national resources that could be allocated to survey and clearance of anti-personnel mines and, if needed, mobilise international assistance and cooperation.
  
  Maintain a high-quality information management system to systematically collect, store, and analyse data on landmine contamination, and on non-technical survey (NTS), technical survey (TS), and clearance efforts disaggregated from battle area clearance and with anti-personnel mines disaggregated from anti-vehicle mines.
  
  Plan for residual risk and a sustainable national capacity required to address it.
  
• Donor states should provide sustained, or for some countries, increased levels of funding for landmine survey and clearance, while making clear calls on recipient governments and partners in affected countries to apply best practice in survey and clearance methodologies.

NPA supports National Mine Action Authorities (NMAAs) to establish effective resource mobilisation strategies, including funding from the national budget, and encourages effective donor coordination through our capacity development of NMAAs.

We also promote the establishment of national mine action platforms to ensure regular dialogue among all stakeholders, including donors.

We encourage all mine action stakeholders to consider assessments of and recommendations for each national mine action programme, based on indicators that reflect international good practice, as found in Mine Action Review’s "Clearing the Mines" annual report.

What does NPA do?

NPA’s advocacy in support of the above calls is an integral component of all our mine action programmes worldwide.

On a global level, NPA actively participates in relevant forums that aim to enhance the quality and coordination of mine action, such as the annual Meetings of States Parties to the APMBC (and five-yearly review conferences), the APMBC Intersessional Meetings, the annual International Meeting of National Mine Action Programme Directors and United Nations Advisers, and other international, regional, and national APMBC or mine action-related meetings.

NPA supports national authorities to understand and implement the requirements of conventions and international standards by strengthening national capacity to adopt strong and effective national policies, strategies and norms.

NPA’s advocacy on the issue of landmines is carried out in partnership with like-minded disarmament and mine action NGOs and as a member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

In addition, NPA publishes the Mine Action Review’s annual Clearing the Mines report and serves on the Advisory Board of Mine Action Review.

What is the problem?

Anti-vehicle mines are designed to be detonated by the presence, proximity, or contact of a vehicle as opposed to a person.

Compared to anti-personnel mines, anti-vehicle mines typically have a much larger explosive charge and a fuze designed to be triggered only by heavier objects.

They strike civilian and military vehicles alike, including tanks and armoured vehicles. Some can also kill civilians on foot.

Because of the large explosive force they exert, and because vehicles are often carrying large numbers of people, anti- vehicle mine explosions frequently kill and injure many people in a single incident.

In some contexts, anti-vehicle mine contamination on road networks has a major impact on the delivery of post-conflict assistance and has required significant funding to address.

A worrying trend has been the use of anti-vehicle mines by non-state armed groups, through the use of improvised anti-vehicle mines, which pose a threat to civilians, military personnel, peacekeepers, and humanitarian workers.

What is the current situation?

Anti-vehicle mines are not covered under the APMBC. They are only weakly regulated under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), under the 1996 Amended Protocol II which addresses ‘remotely delivered mines other than anti-personal mines’ (sometimes known by the acronym MOTAPM).

States Parties to the CCW have spent many years debating technical fixes to address the problem of harm caused by anti-vehicle mines, such as requiring a ‘minimum metal content’ to aid detection, as well as imposing limits on the active life of mines that are scattered outside of marked areas. Despite calls for stronger regulation among most States Parties, they have not been able to make progress towards addressing harm from anti-vehicle mines due to disagreement among a small number of states.

What is NPA’s call?

NPA calls on all states and non-state armed groups to renounce the use of anti-vehicle mines and to destroy all stockpiled anti-vehicle mines. NPA also calls on states to survey and clear anti-vehicle mines from affected areas under their jurisdiction or control.

Given these weapons’ history of causing civilian casualties and obstructing humanitarian assistance, NPA believes anti-vehicle mines should be banned on the same terms as anti- personnel mines.

In general, NPA argues that weapons that cannot be sufficiently controlled once deployed, and where no human is making the judgement on when force is applied, are unacceptable. Anti-vehicle mines cannot distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects. They are often used in a manner that violates international humanitarian law (IHL), for example when they are deployed indiscriminately.

What does NPA do?

If emplaced or stockpiled anti-vehicle mines are encountered during NPA’s operations, we will do everything in our power to convince the authorities responsible to conduct or allow their removal and destruction.

NPA will continue to make the case for anti-vehicle mines to be banned under international law because of their impact on civilians. We will look for windows of opportunity to generate the requisite political will among states to take effective action and make international progress on this issue.