Policy

The Kingdom of Cambodia signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified on 28 July 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 January 2000. Domestic implementation legislation—the Law to Prohibit the Use of Anti-personnel Mines—took effect on 28 May 1999.[1]

Cambodia has attended all of the Mine Ban Treaty’s Review Conferences held in 2004, 2009, and 2014 as well as most of the treaty’s Meetings of States Parties and many of the intersessional meetings held in Geneva, including in the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018 and the intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2019. It hosted the Mine Ban Treaty’s Eleventh Meeting of States Parties in December 2011.[2]

Cambodia is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants. It is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Use

There have been no allegations of new use of antipersonnel mines on the Cambodian border with Thailand since 2013.

In March 2013, three Thai soldiers were injured by what the Thai military described as newly planted mines near the Ta Kwai Temple in Phanom Dong Rak district. Cambodia investigated and in its report to States Parties found the mines were old, dating from the Cambodian civil war.[3] Cambodia provided a copy of its investigation report to the Mine Ban Treaty Implementation Support Unit and the ICBL at the May 2013 intersessional meetings, and to the government of Thailand through diplomatic channels.[4]

Other allegations made by Thailand of Cambodian use of antipersonnel mines on the Cambodian-Thai border in 2008 and 2009 were never resolved.[5]

Production, transfer, stockpile destruction, and retention

Previously, the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) destroyed its declared stockpile of 71,991 antipersonnel mines between 1994 and 1998, and in February 1999 the RCAF Deputy Commander in Chief formally stated that the RCAF no longer had stockpiles of antipersonnel mines.[6] In 2000, Cambodia reported an additional stockpile of 2,035 antipersonnel mines held by the national police that were subsequently destroyed.[7] In 2013, Cambodia reported that while there have been no antipersonnel mine stockpiles in the country since 2001, “police and military units are still finding and collecting weapons, ammunitions and mines from various sources, locations and caches.”[8] Discovered mines are supposed to be reported to the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA) and handed over to the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) for destruction.[9] A Cambodian official has previously stated that newly discovered stocks are destroyed immediately.[10]

Previous Article 7 reports document a total of 133,478 stockpiled antipersonnel mines that were found and destroyed from 2000 to 2008, including 13,665 in 2008; this included 9,698 by CMAC; 2,713 by HALO Trust; and 1,254 by Mines Advisory Group (MAG). Cambodia stated that these mines were “reported by local communities.”[11] It is not clear why significant numbers of stockpiled mines were discovered each year through 2008, but none have been discovered since.

Cambodia has each year reported transfer of mines removed from mined areas to the CMAC training center and other operators for training purposes. In June 2011, the deputy secretary general of the CMAA told the Monitor that all mines held by Cambodia are fuzeless and that Cambodia retains no live mines for training.[12] In its 2014 Article 7 report, Cambodia reported the transfer of 60 inert antipersonnel mines for use to train animals in landmine detection.