United States Bans Non-Detectable Landmines

“The U.S. landmine policy recognizes that non-detectable landmines pose a particularly insidious threat to humanitarian deminers as well as innocent civilians in a post-conflict environment,” remarked Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr., the Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State for Mine Action who also serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. “Our action meets the first major goal in our new policy, which forswears the use by the United States of non-detectable mines now and all persistent mines after 2010.”

This prohibition on the use of non-detectable landmines covers both anti-personnel as well as anti-vehicle mines. The United States action surpasses the detectability requirements of both international landmine treaties: the Amended Mines Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to which the United States is a party, and the “Ottawa Convention” which relates to anti-personnel mines.