International Humanitarian Law

Much of Landmine Action’s work is related to international humanitarian law (IHL). This section provides a selection of resources relating to the key areas of Landmine Action’s ongoing work on this subject.

The anti-personnel Mine Ban Treaty and the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons are all instruments of international humanitarian law – which means that they are legally binding on those states that have signed up to them.  These and other treaties are mechanisms by which states agree what they consider to be unacceptable or necessary in the conduct of armed conflict.  Landmine Action’s work on IHL focuses on laws that relate specifically to the nature and use of weapons (rather than, for example, the treatment of prisoners of war).

This section provides a selection of resources relating to the key areas of Landmine Action’s ongoing work on international humanitarian law.

For a comprehensive body of IHL resources, click here to access the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) online library of treaty texts, commentaries and analysis.

• Anti-personnel Mine Ban Treaty

The anti-personnel Mine Ban Treaty, often called the Ottawa Treaty, prohibits the use production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines.  In addition it establishes obligations on states to destroy stockpiles of anti-personnel mines, to clear minefields and to assist the victims of anti-personnel mines.  The treaty was agreed in 1997 and was the product of a unique international partnership between governments and civil society groups.  Landmine Action continues to monitor treaty implementation and to work for its universalisation.

• UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)

The 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons was established to provide prohibitions or restrictions on conventional weapons that might cause excessive injury or have indiscriminate effects.  The convention now includes five separate Protocols each regulating different types of weapons or groups of weapons:

• Protocol I: a prohibition on weapons that produce fragments that cannot be detected by X-ray.
• Protocol II (amended in 1995): regulations on the use of mines and booby-traps.
• Protocol III: prohibitions and regulations on the use of incendiary weapons.
• Protocol IV: a prohibition on the use of blinding laser weapons.
• Protocol V: obligations to reduce the humanitarian impact of explosive remnants of war.

To be a High Contracting Party to the CCW, states need to accede to at least two of these five Protocols.

By tradition, the CCW operates on the basis of a consensus rule, which means that any one State can block a proposed agreement.  As a result the CCW proceeds at the pace of its slowest member and its Protocols usually represent the minimum level of constraint on military action.

• Geneva Conventions (Additional Protocol I of 1977)

Amongst its provisions, Additional Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 contains rules that seek to protect civilians by limiting the “means and methods of warfare”.  This includes prohibitions on indiscriminate attacks.  Additional Protocol I does not deal with specific weapons but provides a general framework of rules applicable in international armed conflict.

Additional Protocol I also requires states that have adopted it to evaluate new means and methods of warfare in the light of their obligations to international humanitarian law as a whole.

• Oslo Process

In February 2007, 46 nations gathered in Oslo and agreed to conclude by the end of 2008 a legally binding international instrument prohibiting cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.  This process should produce a new instrument of international humanitarian law.  The scope and provisions of this instrument are a subject of ongoing negotiation between states. Click here to view the Oslo declaration.