Mine-affected states are legally required to clear all mined areas on their territory of antipersonnel mines within 10 years of becoming party to the Mine Ban Treaty. The first deadlines expire in March 2009, but by August 2008, 15 States Parties—almost two-thirds of those with 2009 deadlines—had already declared they would fail to meet them.^[1] Four years ago, the First Review Conference of the treaty had pledged that “few, if any, States Parties” would be required to seek an extension to their Article 5 deadlines.^[2]

On the positive side, since May 2007, France, Malawi, and Swaziland have declared completion of mine clearance operations, bringing the global total of affected States Parties that have fulfilled their Article 5 obligations to 10. Landmine Monitor believes at least 122km² of suspected mined areas were cleared in 2007, similar to clearance output in 2006.

The Extent of the Problem

More than a decade after the Mine Ban Treaty was signed, a truly reliable estimate of the size of the global landmine problem still does not exist. Early estimates of the numbers of mines laid were merely speculative and often proved to be wildly inaccurate. Similarly, surveys have often hugely overestimated the size of contaminated areas. As a result, there is no credible, precise estimate for the amount of land contaminated (a far better measure of the problem than the number of mines).

Based on available information, Landmine Monitor believes global mine and ERW contamination affects many thousands—but likely not tens of thousands—of square kilometers. Against this backdrop, Landmine Monitor recorded global clearance of at least 122km² of mined areas and 412km² of battle areas in 30 states and other areas in 2007 (for further details, see below).^[3] Furthermore, states are increasingly recognizing that land release principles—the release of formerly suspect mined areas other than purely by clearance—offers an opportunity to demine with significantly more efficiency and effectiveness.

Since May 2007, new and/or additional mine/explosive remnants of war (ERW) contamination occurred in several States Parties—notably Afghanistan, Colombia, the Gambia, Iraq, Mali, and Niger—as well as states not party Georgia, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. As a consequence, more than 70 states, as well as six areas not internationally recognized, were believed to be mine-affected as of August 2008, as set out in the table below. France, Malawi, and Swaziland have been removed from the list following completion of their demining operations.

Mine-affected states and other areas, August 2008^[4]

Africa	Americas	Asia-Pacific	Europe	CIS	Middle East and North Africa
Angola	Argentina	Afghanistan	Albania	Armenia	Algeria
Burundi	Chile	Cambodia	BiH	Azerbaijan	Egypt
Chad	Colombia	China	Croatia	Georgia	Iran
Djibouti	Cuba	India	Cyprus	Kyrgyzstan	Iraq
DRC	Ecuador	Lao PDR	Denmark	Moldova	Israel
Eritrea	Nicaragua	Myanmar	Greece	Russia	Jordan
Ethiopia	Peru	Nepal	Montenegro	Tajikistan	Lebanon
Gambia	Venezuela	North Korea	Serbia	Uzbekistan	Libya
Guinea-Bissau		Pakistan	Turkey	Abkhazia	Morocco
Mauritania		Philippines	UK	Nagorno-Karabakh	Oman
Mali		South Korea	Kosovo		Syria
Mozambique		Sri Lanka			Tunisia
Namibia		Thailand			Yemen
Niger		Vietnam			Palestine
Republic of Congo		Taiwan			Western Sahara
Rwanda
Senegal
Somalia
Sudan
Uganda
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Somaliland
22 states and 1 area	8 states	14 states and 1 area	10 states and 1 area	8 states and 2 areas	13 states and 2 areas

 

Conflict in August 2008 increased contamination in Georgia and the breakaway region of South Ossetia, the extent of which was unknown as Landmine Monitor was going to press. Ongoing armed conflict in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka continued to add to an already significant mine/ERW threat throughout the reporting period. There appeared to be a smaller new mine hazard in Ecuador, the Gambia, and the Philippines, the result of non-state armed group activities. New antivehicle mine contamination affected Mali and Niger, but no antipersonnel mine threat was confirmed.

The adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in May 2008 highlighted a specific threat that Landmine Monitor has reported on for many years—that of unexploded submunitions.^[5] Although the full extent of contamination is not yet known, clearance operations in 2007 and 2008 revealed at least 25 states and three areas with uncleared submunitions on their territory, as set out in the table below.

* Both Argentina and the UK claim sovereignty over the Falkland Islands/Malvinas, which is cluster munition-affected.

In addition to submunitions and other ERW, the threat from poorly managed ammunition storage areas (ASAs) has gained greater prominence over the last few years. In 2007 and 2008 alone, explosions in ASAs occurred in Albania, Bulgaria, Colombia, DRC, India, Iran, Iraq, Mozambique, Syria, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, killing and injuring many hundreds of people and contaminating dozens of square kilometers of previously safe land.^[7]

Program Coordination and Management

Effective coordination and management are essential for a successful mine action program.^[8] Landmine Monitor remains convinced that civilian rather than military management of mine action—as opposed to military involvement in demining, which is generally welcome—is more likely to result in an effective and efficient program.^[9] Today, the majority of mine action programs around the world are civilian led.^[10]

That is not to say that civilian management is a guarantor of success. The national mine action authorities in a number of countries where hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on mine action over the course of many years—in some instances for well over a decade—are still unable to quantify the problem with any reasonable degree of accuracy.

The primary mine action information management software remains the Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA), managed by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD). This is used by some 50 mine action programs around the world,^[11] but remains the subject of considerable criticism. Some blame the tools for any problems and others blame the operators. What is clear is that the introduction of the much-heralded latest version of the software has, in several cases, been problematic. In Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Cyprus, and Lao PDR, among others, migration of data from older versions of IMSMA has been troublesome.

It is also surprising that data recording and entry has been so difficult in several programs that have received extensive international support and assistance. In Somaliland, for example, the problems are so significant that the IMSMA database has not been effectively updated since 2003. In Angola, the National Demining Institute, despite having 2,000 operational staff across the country, was unable to provide statistics on its demining activities in 2007 because its data management system was said to be not functioning properly.

Demining

Demining encompasses not just mine and ERW clearance, according to the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) definition, but also survey, marking, mapping, community liaison, post-clearance documentation, and the handover of cleared land.^[12] This covers a wide range of techniques and tools that represent more than two-thirds of global expenditure on mine action programs.

The primary mine clearance technique remains the manual deminer equipped with a metal detector. When a signal is heard, the deminer must stop and either the deminer or a colleague must carefully excavate the object to determine if it is an item of explosive ordnance or a harmless piece of metal. The overwhelming majority of signals lead to innocuous metal fragments being discovered (e.g. nails, barbed wire, tin cans).^[13] This painstaking process— repeated thousands of times a day around the world—is why mine clearance is expensive and time consuming. Moreover, the use of a metal detector in mineralized soil (soil with high metal content) or along railway lines is generally not feasible and other approaches must be used, sometimes requiring prodding.^[14]

Other demining tools—especially mine detection dogs (MDDs), used in at least 11 programs in 2007–2008,^[15] and machines, used in at least 18 programs in 2007–2008^[16]—are increasingly being used in mine action programs. They can work in places where manual demining would be too slow or extremely difficult, but there remain demining professionals who do not trust their ability to detect or destroy mines to humanitarian standards. Yet, these tools can particularly assist area reduction or broader land release efforts. For example, a medium-size flail (which weighs about 5 tons) can clear about 1,000m² of land in one hour, or an area the size of a football field (about 5,000m²) in less than a day. In comparison, it could take a deminer 100 days to achieve the latter area of clearance.^[17]

Mine detection rats are being used in one country but have attracted considerable attention, especially from the media. Since 2006, the Belgian research organization APOPO has been accredited by the National Demining Institute as a full demining operator in Mozambique. APOPO operations consist of 36 mine detection rats, a manual demining team, and a mechanical brush cutter. In 2007, they cleared 43,600m² of land in Gaza province. According to a leading expert on mine detection animals, “Rats could play a complementary role or a similar role to dogs. Rats and dogs are equally sensitive/reliable detectors and there are pros and cons with both.”^[18] HALO Trust’s program in Mozambique notes, though, that rats “are not licensed as primary clearance assets. Every square meter checked by rats must be then cleared by human beings, and in reality therefore adds to the cost, complication and time required for clearance.”^[19]

Land release

If the mine problem is to be solved, national authorities will have to develop transparent systems to reduce suspected hazardous areas (SHAs) to known mined areas.^[20] Currently, the approach is one of extreme caution akin, in the words of one Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) Program Manager, to treating every piece of possibly suspect land as “guilty until proven innocent.” As a consequence, according to the GICHD, on average less than 3% of cleared land has contained mines or unexploded ordnance (UXO).^[21] That represents a staggering rate of inefficiency for a national demining program, and a huge waste of resources.

Indeed, the concept of land release has come to the fore in mine action in the past two years.^[22] In part this is a recognition that some surveys have led to vastly exaggerated estimates of hazardous area.^[23] There is also now a better understanding that an array of tools short of full clearance enables SHAs to be addressed efficiently and with a high degree of safety for both program personnel and the intended beneficiaries. These tools and techniques include better information-gathering and verification, and greater use of rigorous general and technical survey.^[24] Thus, for example, since 1996, Croatia has released through survey more than 12,000km², reducing its suspected mine problem by 92%.^[25] Since 2007, Ethiopia, with technical assistance from NPA, has released several hundred square kilometers through general and technical surveys in more than 1,000 communities in its ongoing land release program. In 2008, HALO reported that in Angola they only physically clear an average of one-quarter of each SHA (the remainder is released by survey).^[26]

Land release principles

Care must, however, be taken when applying land release to ensure that certain basic principles are followed.^[27] In particular, any land confirmed to be contaminated must be fully cleared to humanitarian standards to meet the requirements of the Mine Ban Treaty, and the process of land release must follow applicable national and international mine action standards.^[28] A paper by Norway in July 2008 set down seven principles for land release, i.e. there should be:

• A formal, well documented and recorded process for identifying mined areas;
• Well-defined and objective criteria for the reclassification of land;
• A high degree of community involvement and acceptance of decision-making;
• A formal process of handover of land prior to the release of land;
• An ongoing monitoring mechanism after the handover has taken place;
• A formal national policy addressing liability issues; and
• A common set of terminology to be used when describing the process.

The paper concludes that: “States Parties [to the Mine Ban Treaty] should acknowledge that land reassessment and release through non-technical means, when undertaken in accordance with high quality national policies and standards that incorporate key principles highlighted in this paper, is not a short-cut to implementing Article 5.1 but rather is a means to more expediently release, with confidence, areas at one time deemed to be ‘mined areas’.”^[29]

At the request of Lao PDR’s National Regulatory Authority (NRA), the GICHD assisted Lao PDR with a risk management and mitigation model to provide operators with a methodology for classifying land and determining the appropriate action (from clearance to release) to be applied to it. The GICHD conducted the initial study in 2006, which underwent an initial three-month trial in early 2007. A revised model started further trials in 2008. A critical outstanding issue, however, is liability. Neither the government (in the case of Lao PDR, the NRA) nor the operators want to accept liability for incidents on land released under this model.^[30]

Survey in 2007 and 2008

There continue to be concerns about the accuracy of estimates of contaminated area resulting from impact surveys—in particular older surveys that hugely exaggerated the problem.^[31] A major Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) was completed in Angola in 2007, significantly reducing estimates of SHA in the country to less than 250km²;^[32] in Guinea-Bissau, an LIS was close to completion as of August 2008; and in Sudan an LIS had been completed in 13 states out of 19 suspected to be contaminated as of July 2008.^[33] A Landmine “Retrofit” Survey completed in Jordan in September 2007 concluded that 10.5km² of suspected mined areas remained.^[34]

In Algeria, the mine action program was trying to recover from the December 2007 bombing of the UN offices that killed many, including Steve Olejas, the Chief Technical Advisor for mine action. As of August 2008, an impact survey was one of the priorities. In Colombia, the European Commission announced plans to support an LIS starting in 2008.

Mined area clearance in 2007

Despite continuing problems in discerning true mine clearance from release by survey,^[35] Landmine Monitor believes at least 122km² of suspected mined areas were cleared in 2007, with the destruction of 191,682 antipersonnel mines and 10,003 antivehicle mines. The largest cleared areas were by mine action programs in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Croatia, Ethiopia, Iraq, and Sudan, which accounted for 80% of the total recorded clearance (see table below).^[36] In 2006, programs cleared around 125km² of mined areas.^[37]

Battle area clearance in 2007

Significant battle area clearance (BAC) operations were conducted in 2007 in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Lao PDR, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka. Programs cleared at least 412km² of battle area, although two countries alone—Afghanistan and Sri Lanka—accounted for three-quarters of the reported total.^[38] Some 100,000 submunitions—mostly in Lao PDR and Lebanon—and some 2.5 million other ERW were destroyed during the year.^[39] In 2006, programs cleared an estimated 310km² of battle areas.

In Lebanon, as of July 2008, the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre Southern Lebanon (MACC SL) had identified 1,056 cluster munition strike locations covering a total of 40.7km². By the end of 2007, MACC SL reported that 32.6km² of this area had been released, and by June 2008 the figure had risen to 37.5km².^[40] In Serbia, NPA continued to conduct a survey of submunition contamination and impact during the reporting period. In August 2008, it was reported that Russia’s state demining agency, EMERCOM had begun clearance of submunitions at Niš airport in Serbia, with funding from the Russian government.

Compliance with Article 5 Obligations

Ensuring full compliance with Article 5 obligations is the greatest challenge facing the Mine Ban Treaty. Nine years after the entry into force of the Mine Ban Treaty, mine-affected states that became party to the treaty in 1999 must declare if they are not in a position to complete clearance operations before the ten-year deadline. The over-optimism States Parties expressed at the First Review Conference of the treaty in 2004 about the number of states expected to finish their obligations on time has been tempered by the flurry of extension requests submitted by August 2008.^[41]

Completion of Article 5 obligations

On a more positive note, there were declarations of completion of mine clearance operations in 2007–2008, including compliance from France (clearance of a mined area around its ammunition storage area in Djibouti), Malawi (following a survey by NPA), and Swaziland (following technical survey of its suspected mined area). This makes a total of only 10 States Parties that have declared fulfillment of their Article 5 obligations (see table below).

Around two-thirds of the total number of States Parties with 2009 Article 5 deadlines have declared that they will not be able to meet them. The table below includes the estimated area of residual contamination for each state requesting an extension as well as the length of the extension sought.

There is an apparent lack of coherence between the estimated size of contamination and the length of extension sought. Venezuela has 0.2km² of contaminated area (equivalent to four football fields), but is seeking a five-year extension, while Yemen has 243km² and has requested the same extension period. Even taken individually, it would seem that the rates of clearance planned in the requests for certain cases represent extremely low levels of productivity, even lower at times than their past rates of productivity. Peru, for example, cleared almost 300,000m² in its remote border region in 1999–2000, but now seeks eight years to clear only 192,000 m² in that area.

Furthermore, some of the estimates of contaminated area appear to hugely overstate the problem. Afghanistan, for example, has the world’s largest civilian mine action program for some 800km² suspected to be affected, yet Zimbabwe’s mine problem is estimated to be the same as Afghanistan’s. The problem in BiH is more than twice that of Afghanistan. The figures for BiH and Zimbabwe lack credibility, given their histories. As the Marshall Legacy Institute concluded from its study of 50 mine-affected countries, future assessments of contamination and subsequent reporting of land release activities will have to improve dramatically and become standardized to have any meaningful use.^[42]

There was also a wide range of progress achieved by mid-2008 by the requesting states. Some, such as Jordan, Mozambique, and Yemen, can point to significant progress in their demining programs. Others, such as Ecuador, Peru, Senegal, and Thailand, have cleared small amounts of suspected mined area since becoming party to the Mine Ban Treaty that must be considered inadequate by any measure or assessment. Neither Venezuela nor the UK has cleared a single mined area in the last nine years, which is clearly contrary to the requirement to start clearance “as soon as possible.”

Extension request process

As of August 2008, the process by which extension requests would be judged was still to be fully clarified. An analyzing group of States Parties (the President of the Eighth Meeting of States Parties and co-chairs and co-rapporteurs of the Standing Committees) has sought to agree on conclusions that will assist the Ninth Meeting of State Parties in Geneva, on 24–28 November 2008 in reaching decisions on each extension request. As of August, their work had resulted in one State Party (Peru) reducing the length of its requested period of extension, and another (Denmark) requesting a specific time frame (22 months initially), as required by the treaty, after initially failing to provide one.

The ICBL, which was asked to provide input into the process, supported the requests by Chad, Croatia, Denmark (as revised), Jordan, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Yemen, although it put forward questions for clarification on most of the requests. The ICBL had the most serious concerns about the accuracy, feasibility, or appropriateness of the requests from Ecuador, Peru, Senegal, Venezuela, and the UK, and recommended they all reduce the number of years requested. With respect to the requests by Venezuela and the UK, the ICBL has stated that “States Parties should consider carefully whether it is appropriate to grant an extension to a State Party that has not initiated clearance operations prior to the expiry of its Article 5 deadline.”

Other Article 5 compliance issues

As noted above, as of August 2008, it was still not clear in a number of States Parties whether there were residual mined areas to be cleared. The list of States Parties with Article 5 deadlines in 2009 and 2010 whose compliance is uncertain is set out in the table below.

States Parties with Article 5 deadlines in 2009 and 2010 whose compliance is uncertain

State Party	Compliance issue
Djibouti	Clearance complete but no formal declaration
Niger	Antipersonnel mine contamination not confirmed
Namibia	Antipersonnel mine contamination not confirmed
Philippines	Uncleared areas not confirmed
Uganda	Antipersonnel mine contamination appears minimal

 

The Gambia, which has a deadline of 1 March 2013, appears to have suffered new antipersonnel mine contamination in 2007, a spillover from violence in neighboring Senegal. The Gambia has not yet submitted an Article 7 report detailing the contamination and its extent. In contrast, in Montenegro (deadline of 1 April 2017) it is believed that mine clearance operations are complete, but no formal declaration has so far been made.

Whether the Republic of Congo and Ukraine have contamination that invokes their legal responsibility under Article 5 remained to be clarified as of August 2008. In addition, neither Turkey nor Cyprus has formally accepted responsibility for clearance in northern Cyprus. A statement in June 2008 from Moldova, however, raised hopes that it has accepted responsibility for any mined areas in the breakaway republic of Transnistria, where it continues to assert its jurisdiction.

Clearance Obligations in the Convention on Cluster Munitions

The negotiation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions learned lessons from the implementation of Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty. The text is more detailed as to reporting obligations in its Article 7 reporting on transparency measures, which will assist the future oversight of cluster munition clearance efforts. In particular, States Parties will be required to report on the size of areas both estimated to be contaminated and subsequently cleared, not just on the location of areas and the number of items cleared, as is the case with the Mine Ban Treaty.

Mine Action by Non-State Armed Groups

Non-state armed groups (NSAGs) have sometimes carried out limited mine clearance and, to a greater extent, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) operations.^[43] In Western Sahara, for example, the Polisario Front assisted the UN mission in marking and disposing of mines, UXO, and expired ammunition. EOD teams destroyed more than 830 items of explosive ordnance between April and December 2007. In Sri Lanka, however, the TRRO Humanitarian Demining Unit, which is linked to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), has not resumed clearance activities since its work halted in September 2006 due to a freeze on its financial resources by the Sri Lankan government and renewed armed conflict.

Deminer Security

Lack of security proved a major challenge for mine action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and an increasing problem in Sri Lanka during 2007–2008. In Afghanistan, the threat to security was most apparent in southern areas of the Taliban-led insurgency but it affected other areas and involved a range of other actors, including criminal groups. Three Mine Detection Dog Center (MDC) deminers were shot dead in southern Kandahar province in September 2007, and seven more were killed in March 2008; five Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC) staff were shot in northern Jawzjan province; and two MDC deminers were killed in Kunduz province. In August 2008, armed persons also abducted 13 ATC deminers working in the eastern province of Paktia, releasing them a week later, but keeping their vehicles.^[44] Demining operators also lost vehicles and equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in attacks or raids by insurgent or criminal groups.

In Iraq, the National Mine Action Authority was shut down on the orders of the Council of Ministers in June 2007 as a result of political turmoil and insecurity and the May 2007 kidnap and subsequent murder of its director general. It has since reopened under a new ministry.

In Sri Lanka, the operating environment became increasingly difficult as the government imposed tighter controls on movement of people, equipment, and supplies such as fuel and explosives, which they feared might fall into LTTE hands. Operators also faced threats to the security of their deminers, who included a majority of Tamils. Operators experienced abductions of deminers in areas controlled by security forces or pro-government militias, and many deminers working in LTTE-controlled territory either left or were forcibly recruited into “local security forces”; operators also faced tight restrictions on moving Tamil deminers to tasks in different districts.

Fear of attack curtailed some other clearance activities. In Sudan, the security situation in Darfur did not permit demining activities in Western Darfur, and road verification was not conducted as planned. In the Temporary Security Zone separating Eritrea and Ethiopia, the UN reported that during December 2007 newly laid antivehicle mines destroyed a vehicle which belonged to an UN demining contractor, injuring two demining staff.

Other Challenges for Mine Action

Efforts continue to mainstream mine action into development.^[45] Yet, despite references to demining in many development plans or poverty reduction strategy papers and the existence of an online network for practitioners,^[46] the extent of mainstreaming on the ground still appears limited.^[47]

Similar “work in progress” is the issue of gender and mine action. In June 2008, at the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies, the Swiss Campaign to Ban Landmines launched a study into the issue. According to the campaign’s Coordinator Elisabeth Decrey Warner, “There is growing awareness within the mine action sector that including a gender perspective to its activities will not only allow an inclusive approach to gender equality, but also make mine action have greater and wider impact. Various mine action actors and stakeholders have developed and adapted gender policies resulting in fruitful and inspiring initiatives within different pillars of mine action. However, improvements in terms of gender equality in one area of mine action are not necessarily being replicated in others, and there are still many gaps to fill.”^[48] A number of female-only demining teams have been created, notably in Cambodia, Kosovo, and Sudan, as well as, most recently, in Somaliland.

 

---