Even die-hard optimists would not have believed it would be possible when a handful of Non-governmental Organisations (NGO) came together in 1992 to take the landmines out of world's arsenals. Because the lowly landmine has been in widespread use by most fighting forces in the world throughout this century, the possibility of banning the weapon looked far from reality.
However, the situation changed in five years as the Nobel Committee, while awarding the Nobel Prize for Peace to the International Campaign to ban Landmines (ICBL) for 1997, said ''the campaign started a process which in the space of a few years changed a ban on antipersonnel mines from a vision to a feasible reality.'' The ICBL made the wishful thinking a reality when 121 governments came to Ottawa in Canada in December 1997, to sign the Mine Ban Treaty (MBT). The numbers continue to grow and the momentum remains unrelenting towards a total elimination of landmines. The Nobel Committee concluded that ''as a model for similar processes in the future, the campaign could prove of decisive importance to the international effort for disarmament and peace.''
What made the ICBL so successful? Is it, in fact, a possible model for others?One critical element that set the stage for work on conventional weapons was the changing global situation. With the end of the Cold War and shifting centres of power, the world was capable of looking at war and peace in terms other than simply avoiding nuclear holocaust and looked at weapons and methods of warfare which had the most significant impact on the lives of civilians. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, NGOs began to seriously think about trying to deal with the root of what was beginning to be recognised as a global humanitarian crisis - the tens of millions of landmines claiming hundreds of lives every year all over the world. It became very clear that to eliminate the problem, it would be necessary to eliminate the weapon - to ban the production and use of landmines.
In October of 1992, Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, medico international, Mines Advisory Group, Physicians for Human Rights and Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation formally launched the ICBL with a "Joint Call to Ban Antipersonnel Landmines (APS)." These organisations, which became the steering committee of the ICBL, called for an end to the use, production, trade and stockpiling of APS. The call also pressed governments to increase resources for humanitarian mine clearance and for victim assistance.
From this inauspicious beginning, the International Campaign has become an unprecedented coalition of over 1,000 organisations working together in 60 countries to achieve the common goal of a ban on APS. And as the Campaign grew, the steering committee was expanded to represent the continuing growth and diversity of the Campaign. The Afghan and Cambodian Campaigns and Radda Barnen were added in 1996; the South African Campaign and Kenya Coalition in 1997; and the Inter-African Union of Human Rights, Association to Aid Refugees/Japan, Lutheran World Federation, Norwegian People's Aid, and the Colombia Campaign Against Landmines early this year as the Campaign continues to press toward the goal of the total elimination of AP mines.
The core strength of the Campaign, which still seems ill understood by many, has always been its loose structure. There has been no central secretariat or Headquarters. The NGOs that make up the ICBL have been joined together in their common goal of banning landmines, but there has never been an overreaching, bureaucratic Campaign structure. Members of the ICBL always meet regularly to plot out overall strategies and plan joint actions, but beyond that each NGO and each National Campaign was free to develop its own work best suited to its mandate, culture and circumstances.
The overall strategy of the International Campaign has always been to press for national, regional and international measures to ban landmines. Initially an attempt was made to get the nations to review the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), which attempted to control the use of AP mines, and to ban the weapon through amendments to that Convention. While the revised CCW did not ban the AP mines the pressure by the ICBL made many governments to take up the issue seriously.
During the last phase of the CCW review, the Campaign called upon individual governments to come together in a self-identifying pro-ban group. So a series of meetings between pro-ban governments and the ICBL were held in Geneva during the final sessions of the review conference. After the conclusion of the Review Conference in May 1996, the Canadian government had offered to host a governmental meeting in October 1996. The hectic negotiations in the subsequent months paved way for the historic December 1997 meeting in Ottawa for the Mine Ban Treaty.
Not only was this treaty negotiated in record time, it likely will be the treaty that most rapidly enters into force. At the time of writing, twenty-four states - more than half the number necessary for entry into force - have deposited their instruments of ratification at the UN. Nine other governments have apparently passed the requisite legislation but not yet finalised and deposited with the UN.
The ICBL, and its partnership with governments, has resulted in a truly remarkable process. This historic process has clearly demonstrated that civil society and governments do not have to see themselves as adversaries. It demonstrates that small and middle powers can work together with civil society and address humanitarian concerns with breathtaking speed.
(Ms. Jody Williams is the founding co-ordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She has served as the chief strategist and spokesperson for the campaign. She was the co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. This document was presented in the UNESCO COURIER marking 50th anniversary of the declaration of human rights.)