Suleiman Khalil, 21, who lost his leg in a landmine explosion while harvesting olives, with his siblings at his home in the village of Qaminas, Syria, on April 9.Ghaith Alsayed/The Canadian Press
Amanda Ghahremani is an international human rights lawyer and a research fellow at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley.
Five of Canada’s NATO allies – Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland – recently announced their intentions to withdraw from the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, which is also known as the Ottawa Convention. Their justification: they need to protect themselves from neighbouring Russia, in light of diminished protection from the U.S. amid Donald Trump’s volatile foreign-policy decision-making.
But this move would set a dangerous and regressive precedent for the protection of civilians in times of war and peace. Canada should make defending the treaty a diplomatic priority at the NATO Summit that begins June 24.
The Ottawa Convention is named after the Canadian capital because our country played a crucial role in its inception, alongside international human rights groups that later won the Nobel Peace Prize for their advocacy. In 1996, Canada’s then-minister of foreign affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, brought together 50 like-minded states to Ottawa for a conference to adopt a treaty prohibiting landmines, initiating a series of global and regional meetings known as the Ottawa Process. The convention that resulted the following year bans all member states from using, producing, stockpiling and transferring anti-personnel landmines, which are designed to explode from the presence, proximity or contact of a person. More than 120 countries signed the convention the following year, and more than three-quarters of the world’s countries have since signed on.
Land mines are a scourge because these weapons cannot target a specific person, nor can they distinguish between civilians and combatants; they are indiscriminate by design. This is one of the reasons why land-mine use during war may violate both international humanitarian law and international criminal law: indiscriminate attacks against civilians are war crimes.
Since 1999, land mines have caused more than 150,000 casualties around the world, of which more than 80 per cent were civilian and more than 30 per cent were children. These land mines are often placed in civilian areas such as agricultural fields, footpaths and forests, and remain in the ground undetected, sometimes for years, until they are accidentally detonated – by children walking to school, or farmers tending their land, or displaced families returning to their homes. It is therefore the rule, not the exception, that these weapons injure, maim, and kill innocent civilians, even decades after the end of war. These consequences are also exacerbated by structural inequalities and discrimination against women and girls; one study found that females injured by land mines were less likely to have access to immediate health care and therefore more likely to die.
While Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland may consider land mines a protective tool, it is far more likely that they will cause permanent and enduring harm to civilians, especially children, rather than avert military aggression. It is also short-sighted to focus solely on threats to territorial security at the expense of the long-lasting human and environmental toll that land mines will have on the very people these governments seek to protect. Indeed, land mines continue to harm ecosystems, diminish biodiversity, degrade soil, and contaminate water, all of which violate the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
The United Nations Human Rights Council recently passed a resolution on land mines, expressing concern for the threat they pose to human rights, including the rights to life, freedom of movement, health, education, work, adequate food and development. The Council called on all countries to strengthen their efforts to end the suffering caused by anti-personnel land mines, including by accelerating demining efforts through multilateral co-operation.
Canada should take up this call by making it a diplomatic priority to foster respect for and adherence to the Ottawa Convention. Our government has made it clear over the years that it is “dedicated to the goals of the Ottawa Treaty and to work with all of our partners to bring a final end to the scourge of land mines.” The coming NATO summit is just the occasion for Canada to prominently defend this objective.
As NATO members meet in The Hague to discuss defence and deterrence in an increasingly conflicted world, Canada has an opportunity to work with its global partners to underscore the value of the Ottawa Convention and to dissuade Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland from abandoning it. Protecting the rules-based international order, which NATO claims as a goal, means respecting the existing international treaties that uphold human rights and protect civilians in times of war and peace.
There is no better way for Canada to honour the legacy of our namesake treaty than by being a strong leader, once again, at this critical juncture.