TOWARDS A COMPREHENSIVE BAN ON LAND MINES; THE OTTAWA TREATY IN PERSPECTIVE

The convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction (“The Ottawa treaty”) is part of the international concern over the widespread suffering caused by anti-personnel mines. The convention is principally based on customary rules of international humanitarian law applicable to all states. These rules tacitly prohibit the use of weapons which by their very nature do not discriminate between civilians and combatants or which cause unnecessary suffering or superfluous injury The convention was opened for signature in Ottawa on 3 December 1997 and came into force on 1 March 1999. Fundamentally, anti-personnel mines are essentially designed to be placed on or near the ground and to be ‘detonated by the presence, proximity or contract ofa person”. It was the understanding of the negotiators that “improvised” devices produced by adapting other munitions to function as anti-personnel mines were equally banned by the treaty. Note that the Ottawa treaty prohibits anti-personnel mines. It does not affect (a) anti- tank or anti-vehicle mines (regulated by the 1980 UN convention on certain conventional weapons and the general rules of international humanitarian law’ (b) “anti-handling - devices” attached to an anti-vehicle mine to prevent its removal or (c) “command detonated” munitions which can only be triggered manually by a combatant and cannot be detonated simply by “the presence, proximity or contact of a person