Overview

What the Convention says

Each State Party must make “every effort to identify all areas under its jurisdiction or control in which anti-personnel mines are known or suspected to be emplaced.”

Each State Party must “as soon as possible” ensure that these mined areas “are perimeter marked, monitored and protected by fencing or other means, to ensure the effective exclusion of civilians, until all anti-personnel mines contained therein have been destroyed.”

Each State Party must render these mined areas no longer dangerous “as soon as possible but not later than 10 years after the entry into force of this Convention for that State Party.”
If a State Party believes that it will be unable to destroy or ensure the destruction of all anti-personnel mines in mined areas within 10 years, "it may submit a request ... for an extension of the deadline for completing the destruction of such anti-personnel mines, for a period of up to ten years".

52 States Parties have reported mined areas under their jurisdiction or control.

10 of these 52 States Parties - Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Djibouti, France, Guatemala, Honduras, the FYR of Macedonia, Malawi, Suriname and Swaziland - have indicated that they have fulfilled their clearance obligations.

The release of suspected areas through clearance, technical survey and non-technical means has freed up tens of thousands of square kilometers of affected or suspect land. This has benefited the socio-economic development of many countries and communities within them.

The destruction of emplaced mines and risk reduction measures have led to a reduction in annual casualty rates in many countries.

Fifteen States Parties with deadlines in 2009 have submitted requests for extensions to be considered at the November 2008 Ninth Meeting of the States Parties.

States Parties have expressed that a variety of technical, environmental, financial and other factors have impeded their ability to comply by their 10 year deadlines.