Printed from: www.icbl.org/Problem/Landmines
Placed under or on the ground, antipersonnel mines explode from the contact or presence of a person. When triggered, they kill or cause injuries like blindness, burns, destroyed limbs and shrapnel wounds.
Until the Nineties, antipersonnel landmines had been used by almost all armed forces of the world, in one form or another. Thanks to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, landmine use has dramatically dropped. But the weapon still poses a significant and lasting threat.
There are dozens of reasons to ban antipersonnel landmines and to campaign for this goal. Some of the moral, humanitarian, socio-economic and diplomatic arguments are given here.