Policy

The Republic of Slovenia signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 27 October 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 April 1999. Legislation to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically was passed in December 1998 and April 1999.

Slovenia has been a regular attendee of meetings of the treaty, including the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. More recently, Slovenia attended the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018, where it provided a statement on victim assistance. Slovenia also attended the intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2019. Slovenia consistently submits annual Article 7 transparency reports.

Slovenia served as co-rapporteur and then co-chair of the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance (2004–2006) and the General Status and Operation of the Convention (2008–2010). Slovenia was President of the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties in 2012 under the leadership of Ambassador Matjaž Kovačič.

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

Production, use, stockpiling, and transfer

Mine clearance in Slovenia was completed in the early 1990s; there are now no known mined areas in Slovenia. Slovenia is contaminated by unexploded ordnance from World War I, World War II, and the independence war of 1991.

Slovenia never produced, imported, or exported antipersonnel mines. It inherited its stockpile of antipersonnel mines from the former Yugoslavia.

Slovenia completed the destruction of its stockpile of 168,898 antipersonnel mines on 25 March 2003, just ahead of its 1 April 2003 treaty-mandated destruction deadline. Slovenia initially announced it would retain 7,000 antipersonnel mines for training and research purposes, but later reduced the quantity to 3,000. By December 2018, Slovenia had reduced the number of mines retained to just 272.[1]