Landmines treaty: one year later.

In early December the news media reported that areas of Nicaragua, already devastated by flooding from Hurricane Mitch, had become too dangerous to allow reconstruction because the floods randomly redistributed and buried thousands of antipersonnel landmines. The reports served as a reminder that one year after the signing of the Ottawa convention banning A-P mines, much remains to be done to eliminate the weapons and the widespread threats they create.

That is not to say that there has been no progress since the treaty was opened for signature on December 3, 1997. More than 130 states are now signatories, and more than 50 of those have ratified the treaty. The 40 ratifications required for the treaty to enter into force took only nine months to compile--an extremely rapid pace by treaty standards. As a result, the convention will become international law early next year, on March 1, 1999.

Treaty clauses calling for signatories to provide assistance for mine clearance and survivor rehabilitation stimulated more funds and programs for this work during 1998. Even the United States, which refuses to join the treaty until the Pentagon is assured of landmine alternatives, has expanded humanitarian demining programs since the convention was signed. In Canada, the government announced funding for "mine action" programs in Bosnia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Mozambique, drawing on a 5-year $100 million fund pledged during the treaty conference.

Meanwhile, the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines, in cooperation with many member NGOs, has continued political pressure on non-signatory governments to sign the treaty, signatory governments to ratify it, and ratifying governments to increase support for mine action. The ICBL also has established, with financial support from the Canadian government, the "Landmine Monitor," a civil-society based monitoring system to measure progress in treaty compliance. An international meeting of participants in the Monitor was hosted by Mines Action Canada in Ottawa December 1-2, and the first annual report from the program will be published by mid-1999.

Still, as the Nicaraguan tragedy demonstrates, the Ottawa treaty was but the first in many steps needed to provide relief from the landmines crisis. Even with the downward revisions to the estimated number of anti-personnel landmines around the world that have come with improved monitoring and research, the most optimistic predictions suggest the solution is years away. There will be many treaty anniversaries yet to measure progress in ridding the world of the landmines scourge.