10MSP Summary - Transparency, Compliance, Prevention of Prohibited Activities (3 December), and Other Decisions Taken by the Meeting (3 December)

As coordinator of the Contact Group on Article 7, Belgium introduced a food for thought paper with a view to increasing the regularity, precision and quality of reports, and said it would initiate a discussion with all interested States Parties and organizations, and share its outcomes at the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in June 2011. The ICBL welcomed Belgium's initiative, expressed concerns over this year's lowest submission rate ever, and emphasised that submitting transparency reports is a legal obligation.

A few States Parties provided updates on mines retained for training, and most notably Venezuela reported for the first time on consuming mines retained for training and development purposes. Portugal stated all of its retained mines were fuse-less, and the ICBL pointed out that this, as well as similar declarations made by other states in their transparency reports, demonstrates that there is no need to retain live mines for training. The ICBL also expressed concerns that the numerous states that retain mines without consuming them for permitted purposes abuse the exception of Article 3.

Guatemala, speaking on behalf of the informal working group of Latino-American countries, provided an update on the activities of the working group, created to foster regional exchanges of information on the implementation of the Cartagena Action Plan.

Reviewing crucial compliance concerns, the ICBL welcomed the announcements made during the week by Venezuela, which started mine clearance, and by Belarus, Turkey and Ukraine, which reported positive steps towards completing stockpile destruction. It expressed concern over the lack of progress by Greece on stockpile destruction, and recalled that despite some good news, all four states that have missed their stockpile destruction deadlines are still in violation of the treaty. Referring to the allegation of mine use by members of the Turkish armed forces, the ICBL called once again on Turkey to clarify "who is being investigated, what is being investigated, who is doing the investigating, what domestic laws apply, and when the investigation is expected to be completed", to which Turkey replied that it could not comment until the investigation is over.

The ICRC encouraged States Parties to adopt implementation measures in accordance with Article 9.

Other Decisions Taken by the Meeting

• The meeting considered the final report of the task force mandated at the Second Review Conference to oversee an evaluation of the Implementation Support Unit (ISU). A large number of States Parties commented on the report and expressed appreciation of the work of the ISU. The meeting endorsed the final report, whereby the ISU is directly responsible to the States Parties while it continues to be hosted by the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD). The President of the 10MSP was tasked with negotiating an amended agreement between the GICHD and ISU, to be shared with States Parties in advance of the intersessional Standing Committee meetings of June 2010. An informal open-ended working group will examine new models for the financing of the ISU, to be adopted at the 11MSP.

• It was agreed that the 11MSP would be held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 28 November - 2 December 2011.

• The intersessoinal meetings will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 20-24 June 2011.

• The following Co-Chairs and Co-Rapporteurs of the Standing Committees were elected:

Victim Assistance and Socio-Economic Reintegration: Australia and Uganda (Co-Chairs); Algeria and Croatia (Co-Rapporteurs);

Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies: Colombia and Switzerland (Co-Chairs); Indonesia and Zambia (Co-Rapporteurs);

Stockpile Destruction: Lithuania and the Philippines (Co-Chairs); Germany and Romania (Co-Rapporteurs);

General Status and Operation of the Convention: Canada and Thailand (Co-Chairs); Norway and Peru (Co-Rapporteurs).