By: Hannah Guedenet and Sera Koulabdara
This April 4, we still have a tough road ahead before reaching the finish line.
Anti-personnel landmines have devastating effects on affected areas even long after a conflict ends, killing and wounding civilians and ruining lives for generations. Almost 30 years ago, world leaders came together to ban this indiscriminately harmful weapon and ensure mine clearance and victim assistance through the ratification of 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. While banning landmines has become the international norm, such norms are now threatened by national policies around the world.
April 4, the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, is a day dedicated to our continuous fight against anti-personnel landmines, highlighting progress in demining and victim assistance and underscoring the serious dangers associated with landmines as their presence in at least 58 countries and other areas continues to risk civilians’ lives.
These weapons lurk along walking paths and in fields, unable to distinguish between the footsteps of a child or a soldier, or between times of war or peace. Civilians make up the vast majority of mine casualties, accounting for 84% of victims. Children are particularly vulnerable, as in 2023, they made up 37% of casualties where age was recorded. In addition to injuring and killing civilians, mines also rob communities of their land, driving displacement and preventing agricultural activities. Moreover, military personnel are also not safe from these weapons, as they leave long-term impacts as well. In their very essence, anti-personnel landmines violate core international norms and humanitarian law.
The Mine Ban Treaty, ratified by 165 States, aimed to put an end to such suffering and stop the production, use, and transfer of anti-personnel mines around the world, requiring States to destroy any stocks of landmines, clear current mine-infested areas, and provide victim assistance. The treaty has significantly decreased the number of providers and users of mines, stockpiles, and number of victims. In addition, State Parties have been able to provide effective victim assistance, as well as providing risk education to individuals at high risk of getting in contact with explosive ordnance, such as children, nomads, and agricultural workers. At least 85% of affected state parties were able to provide risk education in 2022 and 2023. Despite the U.S. playing a role in drafting the treaty, the United States has never joined it.
However, this year, threats to the Mine Ban Treaty have amplified to a greater extent, as cuts in funding and countries withdrawing run opposite to the international norms present for decades.
The U.S. government’s decision to cut U.S. foreign assistance funding to mine-clearance programs will only make it harder to reach a mine-free world and ensure victim assistance. Mine clearance serves humanitarian, national security, and economic aims. Clearing land of landmines and unexploded ordnance, such as cluster munition remnants, allows displaced people to safely return home, enables delivery of humanitarian aid, revitalizes economic activity, and facilitates the transition from conflict to self-sufficiency. These programs survey and clear land contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance, and provide risk education to communities. Cuts to mine-clearance programs mean greater harm to civilians, especially in places where the U.S. government played a huge role in mine dissemination, such as Laos. America has the moral obligation to assist in clearing these areas of anti-personnel landmines and providing victim assistance to those affected by US-placed mines.
This situation is worsened by European nations’ signal to leave the Mine Ban Treaty. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are all planning to officially withdraw from the Mine Ban Treaty, with Finland also considering taking the same step. Withdrawing from the Mine Ban Treaty could have a domino effect, breaking decades-old international norms and putting the lives of individuals in danger globally, as more nations decide to withdraw from the treaty as well.
With the Landmine Monitor 2024 reporting an increase of 22% in the number of victims injured or killed compared to the previous year, such threats pose greater challenges to the Mine Ban Treaty than ever before. State parties to the Treaty must maintain their commitments. States not parties like the United States must take steps to protect civilians from these dangerous weapons by joining the treaty, destroying their stockpile of anti-personnel mines, and continuing to fund weapons clearance and victim assistance programs in impacted communities. A world infested with mines is tremendously dangerous to the success of governments, civilians, and the future they hold ahead.
Hannah Guedenet is U.S. Executive Director for Humanity & Inclusion. HI was co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its work supporting the Mine Ban Treaty. HI is a founding member and immediate past chair of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines-Cluster Munitions Coalition.
Sera Koulabdara is CEO for Legacies of War. She is the current chair of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines-Cluster Munitions Coalition and co-chair of the Stimson Center’s War Legacies Working Group.
