Geneva, November 16, 2006

Tomorrow the United States, Australia, Denmark, and a number of other like-minded countries will announce policies to reduce the humanitarian impact of anti-vehicle mines.

These states have memorialized their intentions in a “Declaration on Anti-Vehicle Mines,” which they submitted late Wednesday to the Secretariat as part of the proceedings of this Third Review Conference of States Parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).  Over a dozen countries have joined the United States in endorsing this Declaration, and we are confident that more will join us.

Anti-vehicle mines -- also known as MOTAPM or “Mines Other Than Anti-Personnel Mines” -- pose a serious threat to civilians in post-conflict situations.  Because these mines are concentrated along roads and other transportation routes, they often impede delivery of humanitarian relief and medical services as well.

Yet this category of mines is not sufficiently addressed under existing international humanitarian law.

We regret that this Review Conference was not in a position to adopt by consensus a new protocol containing legally binding commitments on anti-vehicle mines.  

However, the United States, like other states that have made this declaration, believes that this should not prevent individual governments from implementing concrete steps that can avert unnecessary civilian suffering and help accelerate the flow of humanitarian relief after armed conflict.

The United States remains committed to achieving an Anti-Vehicle Mines Protocol within the CCW treaty framework.  We hope that circumstances will change in the future, and that it will be possible for governments to join in renewed efforts to adopt a protocol, building on the work done over the past five years.

The following is the text of the Declaration on Anti-Vehicle Mines:

Declaration on Anti-Vehicle Mines

Each of our governments regrets that the Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) was not in the position to adopt by consensus a new protocol containing legally-binding commitments with respect to mines other than anti-personnel mines as defined in the Protocol on the Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended on 3 May 1996 (referred to as “MOTAPM” or anti-vehicle mines).

In view of its concern about the humanitarian impact of these weapons, each of our governments intends to take necessary steps to adopt the following practices as a matter of national policy: 

• not to use any anti-vehicle mine outside of a perimeter-marked area if that mine is not detectable.  A detectable mine is a mine that provides, upon emplacement, a response signal equivalent to a signal from eight grammes or more of iron in a single coherent mass buried five centimetres beneath the ground and can be detected by commonly-available technical mine detection equipment.  A perimeter-marked area is an area that, in order to ensure the effective exclusion of civilians, is monitored by military or other authorized personnel, or protected by fencing or other means.
  
  
• not to use any anti-vehicle mine outside of a perimeter-marked area that does not incorporate a self-destruction or self-neutralization mechanism that is designed and constructed so that no more than ten percent of activated mines fails to self-destruct within forty-five days after arming; and not to use any anti-vehicle mine outside a perimeter-marked area unless it also incorporates a back-up self-deactivation feature that is designed and constructed so that, in combination with the self-destruction or self-neutralization mechanism, no more than one in one thousand activated mines functions as a mine one hundred twenty days after arming.
  
  
• to prevent the transfer of any anti-vehicle mine (a) to any recipient other than a State or State agency authorized to receive it; (b) if it does not meet the detectability and active life standards set out in this declaration, except for the purpose of destruction or for development of and training in mine detection, mine clearance, or mine destruction techniques; (c) to any State that has not stated the same policy that is set out in this declaration; and (d) without an end-user certificate.

These practices will be followed to the extent that each government deciding to take these steps does not already have in place more stringent practices to protect civilians from the potential impact of these weapons.

If circumstances change in the future, and it appears possible that consensus may be achieved on a protocol on anti-vehicle mines, each of our governments intends to join other governments in renewed efforts to adopt such a protocol, building on the work done on this subject over the last five years by the CCW coordinators.

Each of our governments encourages all States that have not announced an intention to apply the policies set out in this declaration to do so as promptly as possible.