|
|
|
|
  |
 |
 |
 |
|  | Liaison Newsletter > LIAISON-Canada Electronic Newsletter #4
Advancing the Land-Mines Agenda Having announced a unilateral moratorium on land-mines in January, Canada is now in the forefront of the campaign for a global ban on these weapons. The federal government is currently organizing an international event, planned for Ottawa from October 3-5, which will bring together representatives of countries supporting a ban on land-mines to discuss the next steps towards a mine-free world. The announcement of the Canadian meeting came in the aftermath of the UN Review Conference on the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the international document regulating the use of land-mines. While the review conference reached agreement requiring that all mines be detectable and, eventually, either self-neutralizing or self-destructing, for many advocates of a ban these measures are increasingly besides the point, or worse. Calling the amended protocol "woefully inadequate", the International Committee of the Red Cross argued that it will actually encourage the production of a new generation of mines, without dealing with the real issue of the massive human suffering caused by land-mines. Currently, more than 110 million land-mines are seeded across some 69 countries, causing thousands of casualties each month. While Canada plays an active role in international mine-clearance activities which remove 100,000 mines each year, between two to five million new mines are laid annually. One of the few bright spots of the review conference was the extension of the convention to cover internal conflicts and "parties to a conflict" as well as states. However, the most significant outcome of the review conference was not the negotiations themselves, but the momentum towards a ban that was generated throughout the drawn-out negotiating sessions. By the time the conference wrapped up on May 3, more than 35 countries had come out in support of an international ban or had taken their own unilateral measures against land-mines. It is this group of states which is being invited to Ottawa in October. Mines Action Canada, a coalition of Canadian NGOs, including UNA-Canada, is actively involved in planning for the October meeting, and is also planning its own public-awareness activities around the event. MAC is also pressing the Canadian government to get its own house fully in order on the land-mines issue before the autumn. While the January moratorium prohibits Canadian production, export or operational use of land-mines, it does not deal with current Canadian stock-piles of the weapons, nor is it backed by force of legislation. For more information on the Canadian meeting, or the activities of Mines Action Canada, contact:
Fax: (613) 233-9028
|
