Anti-personnel landmines around the world, ICRC mine action and the Ottawa Convention – some basic facts

 State adherence and implementation  

Convention opened for signature: 3 December 1997

Entry into force: 1 March 1999

States Parties: 130 (as of November 2002)

Signatories that have not yet ratified: 16

Latest ratification: Central African Republic on 8 November 2002

 Use, production and transfer  

There has been a marked drop in the use of landmines and States that are not party to the Ottawa Convention are starting to take a more positive view of it. This means that international opposition to the use of landmines has become even more widespread. Since the adoption of the Ottawa Convention, 41 nations have declared that they have ceased production completely. This figure includes most producers and exporters of the previous 30 years. Findings also indicate that trade in anti-personnel mines has decreased dramatically and consists largely of illicit trafficking and unacknowledged transfers.

 Stockpile elimination  

Thirty-three States Parties have completed the destruction of their antipersonnel mine stockpiles and another 22 are in the process of doing so. In the last decade, about 34 million AP mines were destroyed, 27 million by States party to the Convention. Some 80 percent of the global total destroyed so far was destroyed in order to comply with the Convention.

 ICRC mine action  

The ICRC is firmly committed to prevention (humanitarian diplomacy, protection and mine awareness) and, of course, to helping mine victims (medical care and physical rehabilitation). The table below gives an overview of ICRC assistance to landmine victims via its prosthetic/orthotic programmes. The ICRC is conducting mine-awareness programmes in Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Armenia/Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Former Yugoslave Republic of Macedonia, Georgia(Abkhazia), Iraq, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Russian Federation (Chechnya) and Tajikistan.
 

Over the past five years, approximately 60% of the ICRC's prosthetic activities directly benefited landmine victims. The level of activity has remained roughly constant over the past few years, but in 2003 the ICRC is hoping to start prosthetic/orthotic activities in China, Yemen and Zambia.

 * This data presented here is drawn from: ICRC Special Report, Mine Action 2001 ; ICRC Information sheet on the Ottawa Treaty , 08.11.02; Article 7 reports of States party to the O ttawa Convention; Landmine Monitor Report 2002 and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.