ARTICLE 5
MINE ACTION
Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies
I) Message
Article 5 states that State Parties must destroy all anti-personnel mines in mined areas as soon as possible, but no later than 10 years after joining the Treaty. Yet many states do not have a mine action strategy that shows they have plans to continue clearing until this task is completely finished.
The ICBL calls on mine-affected States Parties to:
- Develop national mine action plans that are consistent with their Article 5 obligation to destroy all anti-personnel mines in all known or suspected mined areas. “Mine-safe” or “impact-free” is not enough to comply with the Treaty!
- Mobilize sufficient resources to ensure anti-personnel mines in mined areas are destroyed as quickly as possible.
- Make sure that there is a national capacity to continue demining for the long term (including the ability to clear anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines as well as unexploded ordnance found after Art. 5 obligations are officially declared completed).
While Art. 5 is clear about mine clearance obligations, it does not explain how States Parties should declare that they have finished these tasks. Without such a process, it is hard to know which states have finished and how they concluded that they were done. And although Art.5 allows States Parties to request an extension if they cannot meet the 10-year clearance deadline, it does not give enough details about the extension request process to make sure it works well.
The ICBL encourages all States Parties to:
- Create a standard process for a State Party to announce that it has finished its obligations under Art. 5 and for these announcements to be reviewed by other States Parties and/or outside experts.
- Use the deadline extension request process as an opportunity to get as much information as possible from the requesting state about its progress and its operational work plans to finish the task.
- Clarify the extension request process to make sure that States Parties will have enough time to make an informed decision.
- Make sure that the shortest timeframe and specific performance conditions are attached to each request granted.
II) Target countries
The 40+ mine-affected States Parties which have a deadline for mine clearance under Article 5 of the Convention, with special focus on those with deadlines in 2009 and 2010.
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The following States Parties have been identified by the Landmine Monitor as possibly having mined areas even though they have declared in their Article 7 reports that they never had, or no longer have, mined areas: Bangladesh, Belarus, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Liberia, Moldova, Namibia, Philippines, and Sierra Leone. For these cases, the ICBL encourages States Parties to create a process to determine the facts when a State Party declares that it never had, or no longer has, mined areas when there is information and/or evidence to the contrary.
The following States Parties have reported that they were mine-affected but now report that they no longer have mined areas: Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Honduras and Suriname.
More information at http://www.icbl.org/treaty/mine_action
