States Parties 161 States Not Party 36
Intersessional Standing Committee Meetings
Update 4, Thursday 5 June 2008
Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies (Art5)
Mine Risk Education -- Becoming ‘out of date’ but states show no interest…
Unicef had a thought-provoking presentation, bringing up concerns about the lack of development in Mine Risk Education (MRE) approaches and techniques, which makes it constantly less relevant, and raising questions on how to make it work better. Only the ICRC and NGOs engaged in this discussion, regrettably. The ICBL called on all states and MRE operators to better collect and manage data, to respond to current casualty and risk profile, and to target specific groups at risk.
Mine Clearance -- Continuation of reports on implementation of Art. 5: No new extension requests submitted but a number of states have not started their work yet…
The day was devoted to reports of states that so far have not requested an extension of their clearance deadlines. The states with 2009 deadlines were the first to report. France announced it will meet its clearance deadline; Chad will most probably submit an extension request this summer; Niger – still unclear whether it will be requesting an extension. Half of the states with 2010 deadlines spoke, including Cambodia and Tajikistan, which said they would not be able to meet their deadlines. At present, states with 2011 and later deadlines are expected to be on time though would require additional funding. Regrettably a number of countries are still at the stage of determining their contamination and have not started the actual clearance work yet. The ICBL commented it was extremely late and disturbing and called on all relevant states to start the work without further delay.
ICBL side events
In the evening the ICBL held a reception to celebrate the adoption of the Cluster Munitions Convention last week in Dublin. The speakers included Steve Goose; Daithi O'Ceallaigh, President of the Dublin Conference; as well as representatives of Austria, Norway, and New Zealand.
