Convention on Prohibition or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW)

HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS

South Africa declared its Consent to be bound to Protocol II, as amended, and Protocol IV of the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects, commonly known as the CCW. This declaration was deposited at the Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in New York on 26 June 1998.

South Africa acceded to this Convention and its Protocols I, II and III, on 13 September 1995. The Convention, which was concluded in 1980, was opened for signature by all Member States of the United Nations for a period of twelve months from 10 April 1983. The Convention came into force on 2 December 1983 and the framework Convention has currently been ratified by 84 States (for latest statistics, please refer to The International Committee of the Red Cross).

The objective of the Convention is to prohibit the use of the above-mentioned weapons that have indiscriminately caused death and injury to millions of people world-wide, including innocent civilians.

The Convention includes the Treaty and four Protocols entitled respectively:

Protocol on Non-detectable Fragments (I)
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the use of Mines, Booby-traps and Other Devices (II)
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the use of Incendiary Weapons (III)
Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (IV)
Protocol II is the most substantive of the three Protocols to the Convention and deals with mines, booby-traps and other devices which have been used indiscriminately in a large number of recent conflicts, particularly internal conflicts. It is for this reason that State Parties decided to convene a Review Conference in 1995 to amend the Protocol and render its provisions more restrictive as well as consider the adoption of a new Protocol IV on Blinding Laser Weapons. The new Protocol IV was adopted on 13 October 1995 and the amended Protocol II was adopted on 3 May 1996.

The scope of Protocol II, as amended, has been extended to include conflicts of a non-international character, a significant improvement given that most landmines are used in internal conflicts. In addition the general humanitarian restrictions are stronger, requiring greater discrimination between civilian and military objectives requiring advance warning of mines, booby-traps and other devices.

The new Protocol IV places a prohibition on the use of such blinding laser weapons, which are designed to cause blindness.

OTHER DEPARTMENTS AND COOPERATING ORGANISATIONS

Department of Defence (Defence Secretariat)
South African Mine Action Centre (situated in the Department of Foreign Affairs' Directorate Non-Proliferation and Disarmament)
Mine Action Southern Africa
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL)

GENERAL COMMENTS

Fact Sheet: South Africa's Initiatives on Banning Anti-Personnel Landmines (APL): 6 April 2001

The problem of anti-personnel landmines

The United Nations projects that, if the use of landmines was stopped immediately, it would take approximately 1,100 years and U$33 billion to clear, at current rates, those already in place. It has been estimated that a landmine which costs U$3 to purchase and almost nothing to lay costs between U$200 and U$1000 to clear. It is further estimated that each year 2-5 million new landmines are put in the ground. These weapons currently claim some 2,000 victims a month of which 900 of these causalities result in death. In the last 50 years landmines have probably inflicted more death and injury than nuclear and chemical weapons combined.

Africa is one of the continents which has suffered the most as a result of the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel landmines. These terrible weapons have had a devastating effect on civil society after conflicts have ended and place severe constraints on reconstruction and development, particularly in rural areas. In Southern Africa the landmine problem is particularly acute in Angola and Mozambique. After many years of civil war both countries have a legacy of thousands of emplaced landmines. The scale of the problem is well known and the challenge it poses is significant on a continent with limited resources and great developmental needs.

Demining

The major issues that need to be urgently addressed are, therefore, firstly the millions of emplaced landmines which are causing thousands of casualties each year and secondly restricting the availability as well as the use of anti-personnel landmines through, inter alia, the banning of such landmines.

In alleviating the suffering caused by indiscriminately emplaced landmines it is necessary to further develop effective demining and landmine detection technology and to co-ordinate demining activities to ensure that landmines are removed in a cost-effective manner and in the shortest possible time. Developing effective demining technology will also contribute to the eventual elimination of anti-personnel landmines as, inter alia, the ease of their removal will discourage their use. South Africa, being recognised as a country possessing advanced demining technology, has offered its assistance bilaterally and through the United Nations (UN) to other states to help solve their land mine problems. At a UN International Meeting on Mine Clearance held in Geneva in July 1995, South Africa pledged assistance to the UN Stand-By Capacity for mine clearance for training programmes (management of demining, mine lifting and mine awareness) by covering personnel costs to the value of R600 000.

Regionally, South Africa signed a Declaration of Intent with the Government of Mozambique in 1995 whereby both governments co-operated in demining efforts in Mozambique. In 1997 South Africa's Department of Foreign Affairs funded an R 12 million demining project in the Maputo province of Mozambique. South Africa has also assisted the Angolan Demining Institute with training of inter alia deminers. Mechem, a South African company specialising in demining, was involved in demining activities in Angola in cooperation with the United Nations as well as the Maputo province demining project.

South Africa makes contributions to a number of humanitarian organisations and in this regard its focus in terms of financial aid is mainly on the SADC region. The ICRC has received donations directed at the rehabilitation of landmine survivors in SADC, including a donation of R400 000 in 1999/2000.

South Africa's Prohibition of the Use, Development, Production, Stockpiling and Export of Anti-Personnel Landmines

The South African Cabinet decided on 19 February 1997 to prohibit the use, development, production and stockpiling of anti-personnel landmines with immediate effect. Since 1996, South Africa has prohibited the export of all types of landmines. Cabinet re-affirmed South Africa's support of efforts to achieve an international prohibition on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines.

The South African Cabinet further decided that South Africa's existing stockpile of anti-personnel landmines will be destroyed as soon as possible.

In order to retain and improve South Africa's demining capability in the realisation that the banning of anti-personnel landmines is not yet universal and, therefore, such landmines could still be encountered, it is necessary to retain a limited number of anti-personnel landmines for the development of effective demining equipment, demining research purposes and military/civilian education purposes. Such anti-personnel landmines will be verifiable and be strictly controlled.

Negotiations to ban anti-personnel landmines

Negotiations to ban anti-personnel landmines were given new impetus reshaping it from the traditional position of being a disarmament issue to that of a humanitarian and developmental related issue. This has come about with the growing realisation by many states that the limited military utility of anti-personnel landmines is far outweighed by the appalling humanitarian consequences of their use in actual conflicts.

In May 1996 the second review conference of the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW) made significant advances by amending Protocol II dealing with (land)mines, booby-traps and other devices. Although anti-personnel mines were not banned in terms of this Convention the results were the maximum that could be agreed on and represented a delicate and hard-won compromise. Many states including South Africa were not fully satisfied.

The Canadian Government thereafter took the initiative and held an international strategy conference in Ottawa in October 1996 on the issue of banning anti-personnel landmines. The Ottawa Conference marked a watershed in the negotiations towards a ban on anti-personnel landmines and permitted 50 self-selected States, including South Africa, to consolidate their shared commitment and jointly sign onto the Ottawa Declaration calling for a global ban on anti-personnel landmines.

In December 1996 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled "An international agreement to ban anti-personnel landmines". This resolution was supported by 155 countries, no countries voted against and only 10 abstained (China, Cuba, Israel, Belarus, Pakistan, North and South Korea, Syria, Russia and Turkey). South Africa was among the original co-sponsors of the resolution.

From 1-18 September 1997 the Oslo Diplomatic Conference on an International Total Ban on Anti-Personnel Landmines was held in Oslo, Norway with the objective to negotiate a Convention banning anti-personnel mines. The Conference was chaired by South Africa. On 18 September 1997 the Conference adopted the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction.

The Convention sets a new norm in international humanitarian law where a weapon of war has been banned due to its indiscriminate effects and the superfluous injury it causes to civilians. The Convention places an obligation on States Parties to ban, without exceptions or reservations, anti-personnel mines and ensure their destruction. The Convention was opened for signature on 3 December 1997 in Ottawa, Canada, and will enter into force after 40 instruments of ratification or accession have been deposited with the Depository. The Convention has been signed by 133 States and 81 States have ratified the Convention thus far.

The Conference was the result of an initiative started by Canada in October 1996 to build momentum towards the earliest possible conclusion of a legally binding international agreement to ban anti-personnel landmines. This initiative was born out of recognition that the extreme humanitarian and socio-economic costs associated with the use of these landmines require urgent action on the part of the international community to ban and eliminate this scourge to society.

This initiative has come to be known as the Ottawa Process, which has as its main objective a fast track process to concluding an anti-personnel landmine ban. It differs substantially from the position of those States which promote the idea of step by step negotiations to be held at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva. However, there has been no consensus among the members of the CD to negotiate the issue.

Brief History of South Africa's policy on landmines

The South African policy on landmines has over time evolved from first identifying so-called long-lived anti-personnel landmines as being the most problematic and in this regard deciding that they should be replaced by so-called "smart" or self-destructing anti-personnel landmines to what it was prior to the Cabinet decision of 19 February 1997. That position used to be:

a suspension of the operational use of anti-personnel landmines and in this context the re-evaluation of the future military utility of anti-personnel landmines by the South African National Defence Force;
a prohibition on the export of all types of landmines; and
supporting efforts to achieve an international prohibition on the production, stockpiling, transfer and use of all anti-personnel landmines.
Chronologically the policy came about in the following manner:

In 1993 there was no coherent government policy to address the problems caused by landmines, no export prohibition or restriction on the use of landmines other than through military doctrine and a government decision not to use landmines as a border protection measure on South Africa's borders.

In 1994 in compliance with the UN General Assembly Resolution 48/75 (K) of 16 December 1993, the former South African government announced a moratorium on the marketing, export and transit of all types of landmines. No further restriction was, however, placed on the use of landmines.

In 1995 the Government of National Unity decided that the landmine problem could only be addressed in a comprehensive manner restricting the availability and use of landmines and alleviating the suffering caused by indiscriminately emplaced landmines. In this regard approval was given for South Africa's accession to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW) and the Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs co-ordinated South Africa's national landmine policy and its position at the CCW Review Conference as well as what contributions could be made to international demining efforts.

South Africa acceded to the CCW on 13 September 1995 and became a State Party to the Convention on 13 March 1996. This Convention, which was concluded in 1980 in Geneva, was opened for signature by all Member States of the United Nations for a period of twelve months from 10 April 1981. It came into force on 2 December 1983 and, has been ratified by 84 countries thus far. Only eleven African countries are States Parties to the CCW (but not necessarily to all its Annexed Protocols), namely Benin, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Lesotho, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Togo, Tunisia and Uganda. The following African countries signed the Convention but have not yet ratified it : Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Sudan.

The Convention includes the Treaty and four Protocols entitled respectively:

Protocol on Non-detectable Fragments (I)
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-traps and Other Devices (II) (Protocol II as amended and adopted on 3 May 1996 still has to enter into force, which will take place after 20 High Contracting Parties have ratified the amended Protocol)
Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (III)
Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (IV) (Adopted at the CCW Review Conference in Vienna on 13 October 1995 but still has to enter into force)
The objective of the Convention is to restrict the use of the above mentioned weapons. Protocol II is the most substantive of the four Protocols to the Convention and deals mainly with landmines.

On 22 December 1993 States Parties to the Convention requested the United Nations Secretary General, as the Depository of the Convention, to convene a review conference of the Convention with the aim of strengthening its prohibitions on certain types of conventional weapons including landmines and booby-traps (Protocol II) and to consider a new protocol on blinding laser weapons. The reason being the weaknesses of the current Protocol II which were inter alia; that only a limited number of states have ratified/acceded to the CCW thereby limiting its universality, it does not apply to internal conflicts, no clear responsibility to remove landmines after a conflict, no prohibition on the use of non-detectable landmines, weak provisions for the use of remotely delivered landmines and no effective mechanism to ensure the implementation of the CCW.

The Review Conference of the CCW, which took place in Vienna from 25 September 1995 - 13 October 1995 ended with the adoption of a new Protocol IV on Blinding Laser Weapons but failed to reach agreement on a revised Protocol II on the use of landmines. It was consequently decided to suspend the Conference and to hold resumed sessions in Geneva from 15 - 19 January 1996 and 22 April 1996 - 3 May 1996. South Africa attended the first two sessions of the Review Conference as an observer and the final session in April/May 1996 as a State Party.

On 3 May 1996 Protocol II as amended was finally adopted. The following elements represent some of the most significant improvements of Protocol II:

The scope of the Protocol has been extended to include conflicts of a non-international character, a significant improvement given that most landmines are used in internal conflicts.
The general humanitarian restrictions in Article 3 are stronger, requiring greater discrimination between civilian and military objectives, prohibiting anti-sensing devices, and requiring advance warning of mines, booby-traps and other devices.
The use of non-detectable landmines has been prohibited (subject to an optional deferral period of nine years from entry into force).
The use of manually emplaced anti-personnel landmines is further restricted, requiring their use only in fenced and marked areas.
The restrictions on the use of remotely-delivered landmines have been strengthened, with a mandatory recording requirement.
Certain prohibitions and restrictions on the transfer of landmines have been introduced.
Broader obligations to protect peace-keeping and other UN and humanitarian missions have been imposed on parties to a conflict.
A lengthy article has been introduced on technological cooperation and assistance (the first such article in an international humanitarian law instrument).
Annual meetings of High Contracting Parties will take place.
An article has been introduced requiring infringements of the Protocol to be punished under national criminal law.
In participating in the Review Conference South Africa pursued a principled and progressive approach in regard to the ultimate goal of the eventual elimination of anti-personnel landmines and in this regard South Africa sought to achieve attainable objectives. It was, therefore, important to support a revised Convention that would not discourage more countries from acceding, which might happen if the Convention now placed a ban on the use of landmines. Important States Parties to the Convention still view anti-personnel landmines as a legitimate weapon of war and would thus not consider a prohibition on the use of anti-personnel landmines other than those not being detectable. However, it was important that the amended Protocol II should be stronger, not weaker, in its prohibitions and restrictions on mines, booby-traps and other devices than the original Protocol II.

Realising that the amended Protocol II would leave room for improvements South Africa supported proposals that there should be regular review conferences to further strengthen the Convention. This will ensure that any perceived weaknesses in the Convention could be addressed and that the possibility of an international prohibition on anti-personnel landmines be kept on the "agenda".

Although the revised Protocol may not satisfy the concerns of those who had hoped for an international prohibition of all anti-personnel landmines, it represents a delicate and hard-won compromise between the countries which took part in the negotiations. The Government consequently attaches importance to the earliest possible entry into force of the amended Protocol and would strive to promote the universality of the CCW.

On 8 August 1996 President Mandela and New Zealand Prime Minister James Bolger signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on Disarmament. The following quotation from the Memorandum deals with landmines:

"In view of the suffering and casualties caused by anti-personnel landmines to civilians, we call for the world wide elimination of anti-personnel landmines. In alleviating this suffering we are committed to reinforcing international cooperation for mine-clearance and the development of national capacities for mine clearance in mine infested countries. We also support the development of effective demining and landmine detection capabilities."

South Africa was one of the 50 States that participated actively in the Canadian sponsored International Strategy Conference 'Towards a Global Ban on Anti-Personnel Mines' held from 3-5 October 1996 and which adopted the Declaration of the Ottawa Conference in which they committed themselves to ensure "the earliest possible conclusion of a legally binding international agreement to ban anti-personnel landmines."

South Africa co-sponsored the 1994 and 1995 United Nations General Assembly resolutions on the 'Moratorium on the export of anti-personnel landmines' which called for "further immediate efforts to seek solutions to the problems caused by anti-personnel landmines with a view to the eventual elimination of anti-personnel landmines". South Africa also co-sponsored the UNGA resolution on 'An international agreement to ban anti-personnel landmines' which was adopted on 10 December 1996 by 155 votes in favour, none against and 10 abstentions and which "urges States to pursue vigorously an effective, legally binding international agreement to ban the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines with a view to completing the negotiation as soon as possible".

On 18 September 1997 the Oslo Diplomatic Conference, under the chairpersonship of South Africa, adopted the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. The Convention sets a new norm in international humanitarian law and is a clear and unambiguous ban, without reservations, on anti-personnel mines. The Convention furthermore outlines the obligation of States to provide cooperation and assistance for demining and mine victims.

30 October 1997, South Africa completed the destruction of its stockpiled anti-personnel mines. 261 423 have been destroyed and 18 000 have been retained for training purposes of which 5 000 are live mines and 13 000 are practice mines.

This Convention was opened for signature in Ottawa from 3 December 1997. South Africa signed the Convention on that day.

On 26 June 1998 South Africa ratified the Convention banning anti-personnel mines and deposited its consent to be bound to the CCW's amended Protocol II and new Protocol IV. On 1 March 1999, the Convention banning anti-personnel mines entered into force.

South Africa participated in the First and Second Annual Conferences of States Parties to Amended Protocol II, held in Geneva on 15-17 December 1999 and 11-13 December 2000 respectively and is currently also participating in the preparatory process for the Second Review Conference of the CCW, scheduled to take place during December 2001.