THE BAN ON ANTI-PERSONNEL LANDMINES

摘要

Disappointment with the disarmament treaty on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) especially with regard to anti-personnel landmines (APMs) in May 1996, resulted in the commencement of the Ottawa Process in October 1996 when the Canadian Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy challenged the world to meet at Ottawa in December the following year with a treaty to ban APMs. Having finalised the draft treaty at Vienna and Oslo by September, the Ottawa Treaty was signed in Canada on December 2, 1997 by 121 countries, and in barely nine months, the quickest in history for a disarmament treaty, the 40th country ratified it, thus enabling it to come into force from March 1, 1999.