Las TIC Aplicadas a la Logística Permiten Reducir Costes y Mejorar el

and includes information from key players in mine action.

In October 2004 a Special Five Year Review Report was published with an eye to the Nairobi Summit, the First Review Conference of the Ottawa Convention, held in December 2004. The report presented the major findings on the impact of the Ottawa Convention on the global landmine problem (see box 2.1).

Box 2.1

• 152 countries have agreed to ban anti-personnel mines.

• 62 million stockpiled anti-personnel mines have been destroyed, including 37.3 million by States Parties to the Ottawa Convention.

• More than 1,100 square kilometres of land have been cleared since 1999, destroying more than four million anti-personnel mines, nearly one million anti-vehicle mines, and many more millions of pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO).

• Donors provided more than USD 1.35 billion to mine action from 1999-2003, and about USD 2.1 billion since 1992.

• About 22.9 million people attended mine risk education sessions between 1999 and 2003. • From 1999 to September 2004, Landmine Monitor recorded more than 42,500 new

landmine and UXO casualties from incidents in at least 75 countries. Because many casualties go unreported, the true number of casualties is certainly much higher, probably in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 new casualties a year.

• The only governments that have used mines continuously in the 1999-2004 period are Russia and Myanmar (Burma).

• There has been no publicly acknowledged, legal trade in anti-personnel mines.

Source: Landmine Monitor, Five Year Review Report 2004:3

A country that accepts the Ottawa Convention accepts that anti-personnel mines are no longer legitimate weapons. The Landmine Monitor considers the marked drop of the use of anti-personnel mines since the early 1990s as one of the great achievements of the convention and the mine-ban movement more generally. It reported in 2004 that since 1999 only two non-States Parties had used mines continuously, namely Russia and Burma/Myanmar. In 2004 it identified the confirmed or likely use of anti-personnel mines by four governments, compared with fifteen governments in 1999. Thirty-six of the over fifty states known to have produced anti-personnel mines had formally renounced and ceased production. Furthermore, trade in anti-personnel mines had dwindled to a very low level of illicit trafficking and unacknowledged trade; a de facto global ban on the transfer or export of anti-personnel mines has been in effect since 1996. At the time the Ottawa Convention was negotiated and entered into force a staggering number of 131 countries possessed stockpiles containing an estimated more than 260 million anti-personnel mines. As box 2.1 shows, up to 2004 some 62 million

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stockpiled anti-personnel mines had been destroyed, including 37.3 million by States Parties. At that time the majority of the current stockpiles belonged to just three states: China (estimated 110 million), Russia (estimated 50 million), and the United States (10.4 million).

From 1999 to 2003, donors provided more than USD 1.35 billion for mine action; when the amounts provided since 1992 are included, the total is about USD 2.1 billion. The funding has enabled tremendous progress to be made in humanitarian mine action, notably in mine clearance and mine-risk education. The Landmine Monitor Special Five Year Review noted that it had been difficult to arrive at reliable statistics on the area of land cleared in the previous five years, due to inconsistent and incomplete reporting of clearance from many countries. With these caveats it reported that more than 1,100 square kilometres of land had been cleared from 1999 to 2003, destroying more than four million anti-personnel mines, nearly one million anti-vehicle mines, and many more millions of pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO). In addition to this, about 22.9 million people attended mine risk education sessions in that five-year period. However, the ICBL believes that the only real measure of the convention’s success will be the concrete impact it has on the global antipersonnel mine problem. Since the Ottawa treaty entered into force, the number of reported new mine casualties had dropped significantly in some heavily mine-affected countries, notably in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Colombia, Sri Lanka and Bosnia-Herzegovina. There is probably significant underreporting of casualties. Nevertheless, though estimates of the annual number of new landmine casualties dropped from 26,000 in 1999 to about 20,000 in 2004.42 _In

2006 when the ICBL compared the casualty rates of 2004 with those of 2005 it found an increase of 11 percent.43

2.5 Decision-making within the framework of the Ottawa

Convention

Participants

The Ottawa Convention is open for accession by any state which has not yet signed it. Article 19 stipulates that the articles of the convention shall not be subject to

reservations. So, any acceding state effectively consents to be bound unconditionally to the treaty. States that have ratified or acceded to the treaty are referred to as States Parties. Unfortunately, three of the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, the Russian Federation and the United States) are not States Parties, and neither are most of the countries of the Middle East and all the former Soviet Republics and many Asian countries. The group of states who are not parties to the convention also includes the three major mine-producing countries (China, India, and Pakistan).

42 ICBL, Special Review Report Landmine Monitor, 2004:48-52. 43 ICBL, Landmine Report 2006.

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