ICBL | CMC - International Campaign to Ban Landmines - Cluster Munition Coalition - Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor (2024)

FAQs

What does international campaign to ban landmines do? ›

The campaign calls for an international ban on the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel landmines, for increased international resources for humanitarian mine clearance, and increased international resources for mine victim assistance programs.

Cluster munitions are globally banned because they cause both immediate and long-term civilian harm, leaving behind unexploded remnants that act as landmines for years.

They include Jody Williams, Tun Channareth (Cambodian landmine survivor), Song Kosal (Cambodian landmine survivor), and Margaret Arech Orech (Ugandan landmine survivor and founder of Ugandan Landmine Survivors Association).

Land Mines

25 years ago today, the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty came into effect. While 164 countries have signed and ratified the agreement since then, major powers like the United States, China and India are among the 34 non-signatories.

Following two Russian invasions in 2014 and 2022, Ukraine is the most mined country in the world. Efforts to clear mines from large parts of the country are underway, but local activists say that demining operations are severely hampered by bureaucracy and a lack of resources that slow the process.

Minefields may also have marked or unmarked safe routes to allow friendly movement through them. Placing minefields without marking and recording them for later removal is considered a war crime under Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which is itself an annex to the Geneva Conventions.

The Army and Marine Corps have 155mm artillery projectiles (M483/M483A1 and M864) containing about 402 million Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) submunitions. The new DoD report cites a failure rate of 3 percent, while a July 2000 Army study cited 14 percent.

About 18,426 casualties resulted from unexploded submunitions and about 4,656 from cluster munition attacks.

While the US says it sees military utility in cluster munitions, it has not used them since its 2003 invasion of Iraq, with the exception of a single attack in Yemen in 2009. The US last produced cluster munitions in 2016.

But otherwise, the United States has not used landmines in – anti-personnel landmines in any significant way since 1991.

Can you legally own a Claymore mine? ›

Are Claymore Mines Legal? Claymore mines are legal for use by US military personnel. This is because the US is not a signatory to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, better known as the Ottawa Treaty.

Once a mine is found, the most common methods of removing it are to manually defuse it (a slow and dangerous process) or blow it up with more explosives (dangerous and costly). Research programs have explored alternatives that destroy the mine without exploding it, using chemicals or heat.

Many landmines today also follow the IEBL dividing the two entities, which are the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. By 1996, some two million land mines and unexploded munitions littered Bosnia. In September 2013, land mines and unexploded munitions remained scattered in 28,699 locations.

It is estimated that there are 17.2 million of landmines and UXOs in the North West Coast (NWC) [2]. The contamination of the NWC of Egypt with explosive remnants of war dates back to the military events that took place in the Western Desert during WWII, mainly El Alamein battles (I & II) in 1942.

Africa alone has 37 million landmines in at least 19 countries, with Angola by far the most densely affected zone with 15 million landmines and an amputee population of 70 000, the highest rate in the world.

The Mine Ban Treaty is officially titled the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. It bans antipersonnel mines and stockpiles, and prohibits states from producing or transferring them.

Mine action entails more than removing landmines from the ground. Established in 1997, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) leads, coordinates, and implements projects and programmes to mitigate the threats posed by explosive ordnance to the benefit of millions of people worldwide.

Landmine Free 2025 is a campaign to eliminate the terrible impact of landmines from people's lives and fulfil the promise of the 1997 Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty.

The responsible use of such mines, when deployed against an attacking military force, will save U.S. lives and not endanger civilians. Today, the U.S. manufactures only mines that self-destruct, and the self-destruct rate of 32,000 smart mines tested since 1976 is 99.996 percent.