States Parties 161 States Not Party 36
Intersessional Standing Committee Meetings
Update 5, Friday 6 June 2008
Victim Assistance and Socio-Economic Reintegration (Art. 6)
More progress on measuring progress needed
On Friday morning the SC on victim assistance reconvened to give updates on the much-appreciated parallel program for the VA experts and discuss the linkage between the MBT and the UNCRDP with a presentation by Kirsten Young, UNHCHR. Austria made a presentation about the Convention on Cluster Munitions, how it is based on the lessons learnt from the MBT and how it will strengthen the MBT in the future. Discussions on measuring progress towards the Second Review Conference were also held, with the co-chairs presenting a general set of progress indicators. Both the ICRC and the ICBL gave complementary statements on the need to reinforce the indicators and other ways to measure progress. The co-chairs noted the usefulness of these statements and will continue to work towards improving progress measurement.
General Status and Operation of the Convention
On the road to the 2nd Review Conference
The ICRC and the ICBL spoke in favor of working toward a common agreement on Article 2 before or at the 2nd Review Conference in order to establish that any landmines with sensitive fuzes are antipersonnel mines and therefore banned under the Mine Ban Treaty. Austria, Canada, The Netherlands, Norway and Zambia spoke in support of this view. The ICBL also raised again matters of compliance in relation to Articles 1, 4, and 8, stressing the need to develop informal mechanisms to ensure treatment of suspected or known compliance cases. Jordan as 8MSP President noted that it had again written to the head of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia about alleged landmine transfers. Cambodia and Colombia presented their case for hosting the 2nd Review Conference.
ICBL side events
The ICBL held a lunchtime briefing on the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted on 30 May in Dublin. The speakers included Thomas Nash, CMC, Steve Goose, ICBL/CMC, James O’Shea, Ireland, Ingunn Vatne, Norway, Markus Reiterer, Austria, John Flanagan, UNMAS, and Peter Herby, ICRC.
