Towards Ottawa: A Total Ban Treaty on Anti-Personnel Landmines

This paper will assist in understanding the different postures and problems which have emerged so far in the discussion of banning anti-personnel land

The indiscriminate and irresponsible use of anti-personnel landmines (APMs) over the past fifty years has created a legacy of suffering and instability that those most affected are ill- equipped to deal with. The individual tragedy of each landmine victim has wider implications for the rebuilding and socio-economic development of a country years after the end of conflict: individuals become incapacitated and a burden on their families and communities, health facilities are placed under strain, large tracts of land and infrastructural sites are inaccessible, and refugees are unable to return to their land.

The international debate over this issue has been mounting for years. One of the major problems for its inclusion in formal discussions has been the duality with which it can be interpreted. Namely, is the landmine issue a security matter with a humanitarian dimension, or the other way around?

In the last few years, the negative effects of landmines have been heightened with the review of the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW), the launch of the Ottawa Process, and the activities of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

For those international actors who approach the issue from a security perspective, the natural forum for discussions of some type of restraint on the use of anti-personnel landmines is the Conference on Disarmament (CD) at the United Nations. The landmine issue has also been discussed within other formal and informal international forums, such as the CCW, the Ottawa Process, and the ICBL.

It is the purpose of this paper to look briefly at the general forums that are available for discussion of the landmine issue and to describe one of these mechanisms for action in some detail: the Ottawa Process and all the meetings leading from Ottawa 1996 to Ottawa 1997. It is hoped that this paper will assist in understanding the different postures and problems which have emerged so far in the discussion of banning anti-personnel landmines.  

Author

Vinothan Naidoo and Penny McMillin Small Arms Programme, Institute for Security Studies