Policy

The Republic of Korea (South Korea) has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

In November 2021, South Korea reiterated its long-held position that the “unique security situation on the Korean Peninsula” prevents it from acceding to the treaty.[1] In June 2022, an official told the intersessional meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty that “the Republic of Korea, in light of the Korean Peninsula’s unique security situation, is unable to accede to the convention at this juncture,” but said “we nevertheless, support the Ottawa Convention’s objectives and purposes of the convention.”[2]

South Korea participated as an observer at all meetings of the Ottawa Process that created the treaty, including the Oslo negotiations in September 1997 and signing conference held in Ottawa in December 1997.

Since 2019, South Korea has participated as an observer at Mine Ban Treaty meetings. It attended the Eighteenth Meeting of the States Parties held virtually in November 2020, and the Nineteenth Meeting of States Parties held virtually in November 2021. South Korea also attended the treaty’s intersessional meetings held in Geneva in June 2022.

South Korea has abstained from every annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the treaty, most recently Resolution 76/26 on 6 December 2021, which called for the universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty.[3]

The Korean Campaign to Ban Landmines/Peace Sharing Association (KCBL/PSA) advocates for South Korea to join the Mine Ban Treaty and implement its provisions. In 2022, the campaign arranged to translate the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) into Korean.

South Korea is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines.[4]

Production and Transfer

South Korean officials state that there has been no new production of antipersonnel landmines in several years. The Monitor will continue to list South Korea as a producer of antipersonnel mines until it renounces future production of these weapons.

According to a Ministry of National Defense official, no defense company in South Korea produced antipersonnel landmines during 2020­–2021[5] Previously, in August 2019, South Korea informed ICBL that it had not produced any antipersonnel landmines in the previous five years.[6]

The last known production of antipersonnel landmines in South Korea was in 2011, when a South Korean company, Hanwha Corporation, manufactured 4,000 KM74 antipersonnel mines.[7] In 2007, Hanwha Corporation produced about 10,000 self-destructing antipersonnel mines, as well as an unknown number of Claymore directional fragmentation mines.[8]

In June 2022, South Korea told the treaty’s intersessional meetings that it maintains a moratorium on the export of antipersonnel mines.[9] Previously South Korea stated on several occasions that it has “faithfully enforced an indefinite extension of the moratorium on the export of [antipersonnel] mines since 1997.”[10]

Stockpiling

The precise size and composition of South Korea’s antipersonnel mine stockpile is not publicly known.[11] However, South Korea reported in 2006 and 2008 that its stockpile consisted of 407,800 antipersonnel mines.[12] In the past, the government has stated that it held a stockpile of about two million antipersonnel mines.[13]

Foreign stockpiling

The United States (US) military keeps a substantial number of remotely-delivered, self-destructing antipersonnel landmines in South Korea. In 2005, the South Korean government reported that the US held 40,000 GATOR, 10,000 Volcano, and an unknown number of MOPMS mines.[14]

For many years, the US also stockpiled about 1.1 million M14 and M16 non-self-destructing antipersonnel mines for use in any future war on the Korean Peninsula, with about half the total kept in South Korea and half in the continental US.[15]

Most of the US-owned mines located in South Korea have been part of the more extensive War Reserve Stocks for Allies-Korea (WRSA-K). On 30 December 2005, the US enacted a law authorizing the sale of items in the WRSA-K to South Korea over a three-year period, after which the WRSA-K program would be terminated, which occurred at the end of 2008.[16] In June 2009, the South Korean government told the Monitor, “AP [antipersonnel] mines were not included in the list of items for sale or transfer in the WRSA-K negotiations, and therefore, no AP-mines were bought or obtained.”[17] In June 2011, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official stated that South Korea safeguards a stockpile of antipersonnel mines that belongs to the US military on its territory, as part of the WRSA-K program. These mines are planned to be gradually transferred out of South Korea.[18] In June 2012, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official stated that the antipersonnel mines were in ammunition storage, within secure areas of the US Forces Korea.[19]

The law ending the WRSA-K program states that any items remaining at the time of termination “shall be removed, disposed of, or both by the Department of Defense.”[20] Moreover, US policy has prohibited the use of non-self-destructing antipersonnel mines in South Korea since 2010. According to documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Monitor in 2013, the WRSA-K stockpile included 480,267 M-14 and 83,319 M-16 antipersonnel mines.[21] In May 2017, South Korean authorities refused to divulge any information regarding WRSA-K stocks of antipersonnel mines.[22] The US has previously destroyed all non-self-destructing mines not dedicated for potential use on the Korean Peninsula. As of October 2015, the Monitor could not determine whether the US maintained non-self-destructing antipersonnel mines in South Korea.

Use

In June 2022, a representative of South Korea told the treaty’s intersessional meetings that South Korea has not emplaced any new antipersonnel landmines in several years.[23] In 2021, the Ministry of National Defense said that South Korea “did not plant any non-self destruct anti-personnel landmines in a new area during the year of 2020.”[24] Previously, in August 2019, South Korea told ICBL that it had not created any new mined areas since 2000.[25]

Two South Korean soldiers were injured by antipersonnel landmines while on patrol in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on 4 August 2015, which South Korean officials said were newly laid mines.[26] An investigation by the US-led United Nations (UN) Command attributed responsibility for this use to the North Korean People’s Army.[27]

It is unknown what percentage of mines in the DMZ were laid by US forces when the area was under US control. The Status of Forces Agreement does not allow South Korea to make any claims of the US forces, including records of where US forces may have laid mines.