Five European States Withdraw from Mine Ban Treaty

Canada Standard

02-07-2025

(New York, July 1, 2025) - The withdrawal of five European countries from a longstanding and effective international treaty prohibiting antipersonnel landmines unnecessarily puts civilians at risk, Human Rights Watch said today.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania deposited their instruments of withdrawal from the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty with United Nations headquarters on June 27, 2025, and they will take effect in six months. Earlier in June, Finland and Poland's parliaments formally approved proposals to leave the treaty and their withdrawal deposits are understood to be imminent.
"The five European countries leaving the Mine Ban Treaty put their own civilians at risk and walk back years of progress to eradicate these indiscriminate weapons," said Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. "These countries have first-hand experience of the long-term danger caused by antipersonnel landmines, which makes their acceptance of these widely discredited weapons hard to fathom."
Antipersonnel mines are designed to explode in response to a person's presence, proximity, or contact. They are typically placed by hand, but can also be scattered by aircraft, rockets, and artillery or dispersed from drones and specialized vehicles. They are inherently indiscriminate weapons that cannot distinguish between soldiers and civilians. Uncleared landmines pose a long-term danger, until they are cleared and destroyed.
The Mine Ban Treaty, which entered into force on March 1, 1999, comprehensively prohibits antipersonnel mines and requires countries to destroy their stockpiles, clear mined areas, and help mine victims. A total of 166 countries have ratified the Mine Ban Treaty, most recently Tonga on June 25 and the Marshall Islands on March 12.
Russia has not joined the treaty, and its forces have used antipersonnel landmines extensively in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, causing civilian casualties and contaminating agricultural land. Ukraine, a Mine Ban Treaty member state, has also used antipersonnel mines since 2022 and received them from the United States in 2024, in violation of the treaty.
On June 29, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had signed a decree proposing Ukraine withdraw from the Mine Ban Treaty. This measure will now be considered by Ukraine's parliament. Under article 20 of the Mine Ban Treaty, withdrawals do not take effect until six months after the state formally submits its notice to the UN. Particularly relevant to Ukraine's situation, if a state party is engaged in armed conflict at the end of that six-month period, it is not allowed to withdraw from the treaty before the end of the armed conflict. The treaty is also not subject to reservations.
"Because Ukraine is in the midst of a war, its proposed withdrawal is effectively a symbolic move to gain political cover while disregarding the core prohibitions on developing, producing, and using antipersonnel mines," Wareham said. "Expanding the use of antipersonnel mines risks causing further civilian casualties and suffering over both the short and long terms."
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has killed more than 13,300 civilians and injured more than 32,700. Civilian casualties during the first five months of 2025 were 47 percent higher than the same period in 2024, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
The five European Union member states expressed security concerns raised by Russia's continuing invasion of Ukraine as the main reason for leaving the treaty. Each withdrawing country went through a formal, but rushed, parliamentary-approval process.
Member states of the Mine Ban Treaty, including the withdrawing countries, spent five hours discussing the implications of the withdrawals at a meeting in Geneva on June 17-20. A group of African countries led by South Africa urged the withdrawing states to "reconsider and return to negotiation table" as "the challenges we face today require more cooperation, not less." The groups said, "we must collectively preserve [the Mine Ban Treaty's] integrity and universality."
On June 16, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "gravely concerned" by the Mine Ban Treaty withdrawals, describing the action as "particularly troubling, as it risks weakening civilian protection and undermining two decades of a normative framework that has saved countless lives." Guterres announced a new global campaign to boost support for humanitarian disarmament instruments such as the Mine Ban Treaty and for mine clearance efforts.
A total of 101 Nobel laureates issued a joint statement on June 17 cautioning against withdrawals due to the likelihood of civilian harm and to avoid undermining longstanding legal and humanitarian norms. The laureates specifically criticized Russia and the United States, two countries that have not prohibited these weapons, for undermining the Mine Ban Treaty's norms and putting civilians at risk.
Individual Nobel Peace laureates who endorsed the call include the Dalai Lama and former presidents Lech Walesa of Poland, Juan Manual Santos of Colombia, Oscar Arias Sanchez of Costa Rica, and Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste as well as Nobel Women's Initiative members Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkol Karman, Narges Mohammadi, and Oleksandra Matviichuk.
Human Rights Watch is a cofounder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, which also endorsed the statement.
On June 17, ICBL ambassador and Cambodian landmine survivor Tun Channereth presented the Mine Ban Treaty president with the Nobel laureates' appeal and a joint statement from 21 eminent people, including former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who led the "Ottawa Process" that created the Mine Ban Treaty. The signers urged the withdrawing states to reconsider, stating that, "[u]pholding [the Mine Ban Treaty] is not only a legal and moral obligation-it is a strategic imperative for all who seek to limit suffering in war."
All EU member states are currently parties to the Mine Ban Treaty and in April 2025, the EU reaffirmed its long-standing common position supporting implementation and universalization of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Finland and Poland have produced antipersonnel mines in the past and have indicated they may restart production. Finland completed the destruction of its stockpile of one million mines in 2015, while Poland destroyed its stocks of more than one million antipersonnel mines in 2016. Finnish and Polish civilians were harmed by landmines and unexploded ordnance during World War II and other conflicts. More than 80 years later, local authorities still receive requests to clear residual contamination from landmines and explosive remnants of war.
"Countries withdrawing from the Mine Ban Treaty will be closely watched as there's now a real danger that they will start producing, transferring, and using antipersonnel mines," Wareham said. "These governments should instead be investing in measures to keep civilians away from mined areas, caring for landmine victims, and promoting mine clearance."
Source: Human Rights Watch