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The Fifth Meeting of States Parties (5MSP) will take place from 15 to19 September 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand. About 600 delegates from governments, NGOs, international organizations and UN agencies will participate in the formal conference and the numerous side events.
The Meeting of States Parties is the highlight of the landmine calendar. The event itself, and the anticipation of it in the preceding months, brings renewed focus to everyone working to implement the treaty -- whether they are clearing mines, offering assistance to mine survivors, destroying stockpiles, drafting domestic legislation or encouraging more countries to join. The ICBL, for example, issued an "Asia Appeal" http://www.icbl.org/news/2002/250.php calling for concerted efforts on treaty universalization and implementation in the Asia-Pacific region by the 5MSP.
The requirement for the UN Secretary General to convene these annual meetings, of which this is the fifth, is outlined in Article 11 of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (or Mine Ban Treaty).
The 5MSP is important because it provides the opportunity for States Parties to assess progress and report on plans for the full universalization and implementation of the treaty. It also serves as a rallying point for civil society involvement and mobilization in the landmine issue. This year, stocktaking and civil society engagement are all the more important as preparation gets underway for the treaty Review Conference of 2004 and as the Mine Ban Treaty marks its fifth year since entry into force.
The ICBL is pleased that the event is taking place in a mine-affected country and an important region for the landmine issue. It enables us to highlight the landmine crisis in the Asia-Pacific and address the progress made to date, both regionally and internationally.
This is an important region for the landmine issue. Mines are still a serious humanitarian problem here, yet more than half of the 40 countries in Asia-Pacific have not banned the weapon and about a dozen are still using and producing them. In fact, more current producers and users are in this region than anywhere else.
In the region, there are 16 States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty and 5 signatories. Some of the most severely mine-affected countries can be found here: Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Last year, mine casualties were recorded in 13 of the 16 mine-affected countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, India, South Korea, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Asia-Pacific is also the home of major antipersonnel mine users, producers and stockpilers: Burma (Myanmar), China, India and Pakistan.
Despite this, there has been some progress in eliminating mines in this part of the world. Extensive mine clearance has freed up vast tracts of land in places like Cambodia and Thailand. At the Meeting of States Parties last year Afghanistan, one of the most mine-affected places on earth and a recent user of the weapon, embraced the ban and acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. Also, States Parties in the region have been active proponents of the treaty in bilateral discussions and in forums like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); and many States Parties also contribute generously to mine action and victim assistance activities.
The ICBL will take advantage of the 5MSP in Bangkok to highlight this crucial region and step up efforts in this part of the world. Recent and upcoming activities include: the ICBL/Landmine Monitor regional meeting in Colombo in January; work on the Non Aligned Movement Summit in Malaysia in February; a trip by Ambassador Jody Williams to Burma also in February; a trip by New Zealand campaign members with a delegation from their Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Papua New Guinea in April; participation in a seminar in Phnom Penh on 10 years of humanitarian mine action in March; and actions involving Indonesia and Brunei.
All the major players in the mine ban movement will be there, including States Parties, observers, ICBL and member NGOs, the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN agencies. The organizers anticipate that there will be 600 diplomats, landmine survivors, deminers and activists. Governments from the 132 member states of the Mine Ban Treaty are eligible for full voting status at the conference, and as many as 50 signatory and non-signatory countries may attend as observers. The ICBL will have a formal delegation at the conference and is expecting more than 120 campaigners, deminers, landmine survivors and researchers from its worldwide network. The media are also invited to seek accreditation for the meeting, and the numerous public events and media briefings during the week.
The ICBL has prioritized the 5MSP and will work to ensure maximum civil society participation, as we have done for previous Meetings of States Parties. The Thai Campaign to Ban Landmines (TCBL) will host the meeting and coordinate ICBL’s presence in Bangkok. We will have a large delegation of approximately 120 survivors, deminers, campaigners and landmine monitor researchers from more than 60 countries around the world.
The ICBL has official non-delegate status and will participate in the Meeting in full. Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams of the ICBL will speak in the opening ceremony with other dignitaries and personalities. The campaign will make a formal speech to delegates at the beginning of the 5MSP and will make numerous presentations and interventions in the working sessions that follow.
The Landmine Monitor Report 2003: Toward a Mine-Free World will be launched just prior to the meeting on 9 September and, in addition, the ICBL will hold briefings, exhibits, and media events throughout the week, and lobby the conference delegates. The Thai campaign has a full program of events, including a bicycle rally during the final stockpile destruction in Thailand in April, a hand-printing banner campaign "Ten Thousand Hands" held throughout Bangkok and the provinces for the next six months, a mobile "Hold Hands Against Mines" exhibit to be displayed in malls, universities and city parks, "Youth Against War" campaign in schools and universities, Mine Action Photo Competition in June, a regional seminar "APM's - Are They Worth It?" for academia, media and civil society in July, and a Ban Landmines Fair to be held in late July.
After the 5MSP, the ICBL will be holding its biennial General Meeting of member campaigns to chart campaign strategies for 2004 Review Conference and beyond. This will take place on 20 and 21 September in Bangkok.
The Mine Ban Treaty is the international agreement that bans antipersonnel landmines. Sometimes referred to as the Ottawa Convention, it is officially titled: the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. The treaty is the most comprehensive international instrument for ridding the world of the scourge of mines and deals with everything from mine use, production and trade, to victim assistance, mine clearance and stockpile destruction.
In December 1997 a total of 122 governments signed the treaty in Ottawa, Canada. In September the following year, Burkina Faso was the 40 th country to ratify, triggering entry into force six months later; thus, in March 1999 the treaty became binding under international law, and did so quicker than any treaty of its kind in history. Today, the treaty is still open for ratification by signatories and for accession by those that did not sign before March 1999.
Of the 146 states that have joined the treaty, a total of 132 have ratified or acceded, at the time of writing. A total of 48 countries remain outside of the treaty entirely.
States Parties have joined the Mine Ban Treaty, through either ratification or accession, and are bound by its obligations. Signatory countries signed the treaty, when it was still open for signature before March 1999, but have not yet ratified and thus are not full States Parties. Non-signatories may join the treaty through a one-step procedure known as accession.
The annual meetings of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty take place alternately in Geneva, Switzerland and in mine-affected countries in different regions in the world.
The First Meeting of States Parties was held in Maputo, Mozambique, from 3 to 7 May 1999. Holding the meeting in a mine-affected country that is part of a severely mine-affected region was an important significant move and helped keep the world’s attention on the landmines crisis in Africa and beyond.
The Second Meeting of States Parties was held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, from 11 to 15 September 2000. The ICBL participated in the meeting with an official delegation of nineteen people. Additionally, 162 ICBL campaigners, researchers, deminers and survivors from fifty-three countries attended.
The Third Meeting of States Parties took place in Managua, Nicaragua, from 18 to 21 September 2001. Despite the tragic events of 11 September, the meeting went ahead and was indeed a successful one. It highlighted the importance of international humanitarian law and the global landmine crisis. The “Managua Challenge” mobilized countries in the Americas to join the treaty and destroy their landmine stockpiles in the months preceding the event.
The Fourth Meeting of States Parties was convened at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from 16 to 20 September 2002. Speaking at the opening ceremony, ICBL ambassador Jody Williams highlighted amongst other issues, the importance of working "even more vigorously to address the significant gap between the hope offered to landmine survivors through the successes of the ban movement and the words of the Mine Ban Treaty – and the realities of too many of their lives in too many countries around the world."