Ottawa Landmine Treaty

International agreement banning antipersonnel land mines. Officially titled the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines, the Ottawa Landmine Treaty marks the first time that a conventional weapon in widespread use has been outlawed by a majority of world nations.

Military experts believe that, over the past 25 years, more than 50 countries have manufactured as many as 200 million antipersonnel land mines. The leading producers have been China, Italy, the former Soviet [Page 563]Union, and the United States. Antipersonnel land mines have been used in countless conflicts throughout the 20th century, and millions remain buried on former battlegrounds. These mines continue to be a daily threat in scores of countries. This ongoing danger to civilians was a significant factor leading to the treaty. Opponents of antipersonnel land mines maintain that the weapons violate an important rule of warfare, in that they are incapable of distinguishing between soldiers and civilians. Moreover, unlike other types of weapons, land mines remain a danger in the areas where they are deployed long after a cease-fire has been called or a conflict has ended.

The impetus for the eventual elimination of antipersonnel mines began with a 1994 speech delivered by U.S. president Bill Clinton to the United Nations. Nevertheless, the United States is not one of the 150 signatories of the treaty. The United States's reluctance to ratify the Ottawa Landmine Treaty stems largely from the unwillingness of the international community to give the United States a so-called Korea exemption. In order to protect South Korea from a possible North Korean invasion, the United States maintains some 40,000 troops and tens of thousands of land mines along the Korean Peninsula's demilitarized zone. The United States considers these mines part of its security guarantee for South Korea in particular as well as a key part of overall U.S. tactical military strategy.

The Clinton administration pledged that the United States would sign the treaty by 2006 if it could identify and deploy an alternative to land mines. In March 2004, however, the administration of President George W. Bush announced that the United States had effectively abandoned that pledge, though it would significantly increase its financial contribution to mine-elimination programs beginning in 2005. The United States has not deployed antipersonnel land mines since the Gulf War of 1991.

United States attitudes and actions in regard to the treaty are contradictory. On the one hand, the United States is not a signatory and is actively developing new types of land mines. On the other hand, the United States has given more money to other countries for demining operations than has any other nation. It has also destroyed more mines—some 3 million—than any other country.

The treaty has had mixed results in controlling the production, deployment, and removal of land mines. As of 2002, the estimated annual number of deaths from land mines decreased from about 26,000 before the treaty went into effect to between 15,000 and 20,000 deaths afterward. The treaty has also resulted in modest reductions in land mine production and sales. However, 16 countries—including the United States—still count land mines among their tactical weapons, and mine-clearing operations have only barely scratched the surface of the problem. The United Nations estimates the number of land mines in Afghanistan alone at 5 to 10 million.

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