A Global Ban on Landmines: Treaty Signing Conference and
Mine Action Forum
Ottawa, Canada
2–4 December 1997
Organized by the government of Canada
Fourteen months after Foreign Minister Axworthy's audacious challenge to the world's governments, representatives of 121 States queued up to sign the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, and three of these – Canada, Ireland and Mauritius – also ratified the Convention. In addition to the signing ceremony, participating governments pledged a total of more than US $500 million for mine action programmes worldwide.
3 December 1997
We celebrate today a victory for humanity; for the cause of humanitarian values in the face of cruelty and indifference.
This historic movement against the horrors of anti-personnel mines began as an expression of human compassion on the part of medical and other humanitarian workers in mine-affected countries. It grew as their compelling testimony and images of the appalling effects of this weapon were transmitted by a myriad of non-governmental organizations and international agencies. It became unstoppable as the public conscience began to view this weapon as an abomination. An absolute ban on anti-personnel mines was transformed from an “idealistic dream” into the Ottawa treaty as diplomats, political leaders and generals allowed themselves to move beyond “business as usual” in the world of international negotiations and respond to the suffering this weapon inflicts.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, and the entire International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on behalf of which I speak, pay
-587-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: The Banning of Anti-Personnel Landmines: The Legal Contribution of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Contributors: Louis Maresca - Editor, Stuart Maslen - Editor.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press.
Place of publication: Cambridge, England.
Publication year: 2000.
Page number: 587.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
- Georgia
- Arial
- Times New Roman
- Verdana
- Courier/monospaced
Reset