A follow-up summit next month to the landmark anti-mine treaty will seek action on gaining universal acceptance of the accord, assisting victims of mine blasts, clearing land of the deadly weapons and destroying stockpiles, the President-designate of the conference said Wednesday at the United Nations in New York.
– Unlike other global problems like HIV/AIDS, this is an issue – a worldwide crisis – that indeed can be tackled within a reasonable timeframe with the necessary political commitment and financial support, Wolfgang Petritsch, Austrias Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, said adding: – That is what political leaders need to be aware of when they come to the meeting.
The First Review Conference of the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction – unofficially known as the Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World – is scheduled to be held from 29 November to 3 December in Nairobi, Kenya, five years since it became international law in 1999.
Ambassador Petritsch described the summit as “a multilateral success story,” as more progress has been made than originally thought possible in 1997 when the Ottawa Conference on landmines took place.
The Ottawa Convention now has 143 members, including most mine-affected countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique, Cambodia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, he said. However, the 50 or so remaining countries not party to the treaty include China, the Russian Federation and United States.
More than 37 million stockpiled mines have been destroyed, while the number of new mine victims had dropped significantly, he added. – Just imagine what it would mean if these 37 million landmines would have been laid, what it means in terms of human costs and the cost of demining, he concluded.
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