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US Policy |
U.S. Policy The U.S. Should Join the Mine Ban Treaty!
To date, the United States has not joined the Mine Ban Treaty despite being a leader in demining and victim assistance efforts. However, President Barack Obama has just announced that the administration has initiated a comprehensive review of U.S. landmine policy to determine whether the U.S. will join the Mine Ban Treaty in the near future. The United States Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) needs your help to ensure that this review includes not just the Pentagon, but also voices from key legislators, NATO allies that are States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty, and nongovernmental organizations that have been working on this issue for the past few decades. You can write your own letter to your Senators and Congressmen. Urge them to sign the open letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that are currently being circulated in the House and Senate. Tell them that you want the U.S. to conduct a timely, transparent and inclusive review aimed at joining the Mine Ban Treaty. Make your voice heard. The United States is one of only 39 countries that have not yet joined the treaty. In the Western Hemisphere, only the U.S and Cuba are nonsignatories. Every other member of NATO except Poland (which has already signed and will ratify in 2012) are also States Parties to the treaty. The U.S. has not used antipersonnel landmines since 1991, has not exported them since 1992 and has not produced them since 1997. However, the U.S. currently maintains a stockpile of 10.4 million antipersonnel landmines in U.S. arsenals. U.S. participation is important to the universalization of the treaty. Even though landmine use has been significantly reduced worldwide, a few countries refuse to join—and even continue to use landmines—under the cover that they will not join if the U.S. has not joined. Former President Bill Clinton indicated that the United States would join the Mine Ban Treaty in 2006 as long as U.S. efforts to find “alternatives” to antipersonnel landmines were successful. The Bush Administration conducted a formal review of U.S. landmine policy starting in the summer of 2001. The new policy, which was announced at the State Department in late February 2004, represents a major rollback of U.S. progress on the issue. The Bush policy in summary states that:
It is time for us to finally abandon the Bush-era policy, get back on track and fulfill the promise the U.S. made to the international community more than 13 years ago. |
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For more on the Mine Ban Treaty, go to www.icbl.org |