Jordan
Mine Ban Policy
Policy
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 11 August 1998, ratified on 13 November 1998, and became a State Party on 1 May 1999. On 1 April 2008, Jordan enacted the National Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Law, which incorporated the treaty into Jordan’s domestic law.[1]
Jordan has attended most meetings of the treaty, including the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. More recently Jordan attended the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018, where it provided statements on victim assistance and Article 7 reporting.[2] Jordan did not attend the intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2019.
Jordan’s Prince Mired Raad Zeid Al-Hussein has played an important leadership role in promoting the treaty. He served as chair of the board of the National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation (NCDR) and president of the Eighth Meeting of States Parties in November 2007. He was also appointed in 2010 to serve as Special Envoy on Universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Jordan is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines. It is not party to CCW Protocol V on explosive remnants of war, nor is it party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Production, use, stockpile destruction, and retention
Jordan never produced or exported antipersonnel mines. It imported mines in the past. The United States (US) supplied 35,972 antipersonnel mines from 1973 to 1975, including 29,970 non-detectable M14 blast mines and 6,002 M18A1 Claymore mines.[3] Jordan also imported mines from Belgium (PRB M35) and the UK (No. 3 and No. 5 antipersonnel mines).[4]
Jordan last used landmines in 1978. It completed the destruction of its stockpile of 92,342 antipersonnel mines in April 2003. It included Claymore mines in its stockpile destruction.
In April 2019, Jordan reported that it retained 100 antipersonnel mines for training purposes.[5]
[1] NCDR, “The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Law: Law Number 10 for the year 2008,” Amman, April 2008. For more details see, Landmine Monitor Report 2008, p. 459.
[2] Statement of Jordan, Mine Ban Treaty Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 27 November 2018; and statement of Jordan, Mine Ban Treaty Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties, Geneva, 30 November 2018.
[3] Letter to Human Rights Watch from US Army, Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command (USAMCCOM), 25 August 1993, and attached statistical tables.
[4] Wolfgang Hirsch, Point Paper: Jordan (New York: United Nations Publications, 1998), p. 7.
[5] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, 24 April 2019.