America’s decision to allow the use of anti-personnel landmines is a dangerous and retrograde step that will endanger thousands of lives, including those of children, and should be publicly condemned by Australia, a coalition of human rights and arms control organisations has told the prime minister.
The Australian Arms Control Coalition, has written to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, defence minister Linda Reynolds and foreign affairs minister Marise Payne, urging the government to ensure Australian forces were not involved in any way in the use of anti-personnel mines by the US.
Last month, the US president, Donald Trump, reversed a 2014 Obama administration ban on anti-personnel landmines, which applied everywhere in the world except for the Korean peninsula.
“Landmines are an important tool that our forces need to have available to them in order to ensure mission success and in order to reduce risk to forces,” US defence secretary Mark Esper said.
With the exception of mines used in defence of South Korea, the Obama-era policy adhered to the 1997 Ottawa Convention, a legally binding treaty adhered to by 164 states, banning the use, production and stockpiling or transfer of anti-personnel mines.
The Australian Arms Control Coalition wrote to the prime minister arguing the Australian government should register its “grave concern” to the United States over its new policy allowing the increased use of anti-personnel mines, as well as publicly condemning the US decision “in the strongest possible terms”.
The Coalition has also sought guarantees that landmines are not stored on Australian soil, or, in the case of joint operations, that Australian forces are not involved in transporting mines or in facilitating landmine placements.
“We look forward to a timely public statement clarifying Australia’s position on these matters.”
The coalition argued the US announcement undermined years of international efforts to protect civilians from indiscriminate explosives in conflict zones.
“The majority of people killed by landmines and explosive remnants of war are civilians - 71% - and more than half of all the civilians who are killed are children - 54%. This is a tragedy, which can be avoided through ending the use of anti personnel landmines – munitions to which children are particularly vulnerable.”
Australia is a party to the Ottawa Convention and has supported efforts towards a world free of landmines by 2025.
“The announcement by the US is a retrograde step which must be condemned by all countries concerned with the horrific humanitarian impact of landmines,” the coalition said.
Australia’s defence department said Australia would continue to conduct all of its military operations in accordance with its international, domestic and legal obligations.
“With regards to landmines, Australia is a state party to the mine ban convention and the convention on certain conventional weapons (CCW), and meets all of its obligations under those conventions,” a defence spokeswoman said.
“The United States in its statement makes clear that it will abide by its international obligations… and that it will employ a range of safeguards to limit the risk of harm to civilians. This includes requiring that mines self-destruct or in the event of a failure of this mechanism, they self-deactivate.”
No Australian joint operations with the US involve the use of land mines, the spokeswoman said.
The United States has never been a signatory nor party to the Ottawa Convention.
“This policy will authorize combatant commanders, in exceptional circumstances, to employ advanced, non-persistent landmines specifically designed to reduce unintended harm to civilians and partner forces,” a White House statement said.
The new policy, which was the result of a 2017 review started by then-defense secretary Jim Mattis, will allow the military to use landmines that can self-destruct in 30 days or less and have a back-up deactivation feature.
A Pentagon spokesman said there were no “geographic limitations” to where the landmines could be used, and that their use would need to be authorised by a four-star military official and reviewed by the secretary of defense.
Members of the Australian Arms Control Coalition include Save the Children, Amnesty, the Australian Centre for International Justice, the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Human Rights Watch, Safe Ground, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network, Oxfam Australia and Wage Peace.
