Policy

The Republic of Lithuania signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 22 February 1999 and ratified it on 12 May 2003, becoming a State Party on 1 November 2003. Production and import/export of antipersonnel mines have not been licensed since 1990, and an export moratorium has been in place since 1998. Lithuania states that its law provides for the imposition of penal sanctions as required by the treaty.

Lithuania has attended some meetings of the treaty, most recently the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in December 2018 and the intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2019. It did not provide a statement at either meeting. Lithuania did not attend the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. Previously, Lithuania served on the Standing Committee on Stockpile Destruction from 2006-2009 and in 2011.

Lithuania is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. Lithuania is also party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Production, use, transfer, and stockpiling

Lithuania has not produced antipersonnel mines. Lithuania possessed a stock of 8,091 antipersonnel mines of Soviet origin, including four types.[1] Lithuania’s Article 7 report submitted in April 2004 revealed that two types (PMN and MON-50) were included in the stockpile destruction program. The other two types (MON-100 and OZM-72) were “changed to remotely controlled” and retained.

Lithuania completed destruction of its stockpile of 4,104 antipersonnel mines on 7 June 2004. Lithuania retained 1,488 mines for training purposes by the end of 2011.In 2013, most of these were transferred for destruction, and by the end of 2016 Lithuania no longer retained any mines for training.[2]

Lithuania is contaminated by unexploded ordnance from World War II but there are no known mined areas.