The treaty focuses on antipersonnel landmines and defines them as being: “a mine designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons”.
In addition, the negotiators of the convention acknowledged that antivehicle mines with anti-handling devices or sensitive fuses that explode from an unintentional or innocent act are considered antipersonnel mines and are therefore prohibited too. This is also the ICBL’s view. But governments at that time did not include this in the text of the convention and not all States Parties today agree with this position.
The ICBL continues to urge member states for clarity on the interpretation of the definition, together with the International Committee of the Red Cross. We will lobby for our interpretation, which we believe is in line with that of the treaty negotiatiors.
Other munitions such as cluster bombs or unexploded ordnance are not addressed by the treaty. The ICBL recognises the humanitarian impact of other unexploded ordnance other than antipersonnel landmines and several members of the ICBL and others created a new coalition called the Cluster Munition Coalition and called for a moratorium on the use, production and trade of cluster weapons until the humanitarian concerns can be effectively addressed.