Poland closer to terminate the Ottawa Convention
The Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committees supported a bill to terminate the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines without amendment. The House will consider the bill during a session that began Wednesday.
Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Wziatek emphasized that the bill concerns the use of mines in areas that cannot be fortified any other way, and that there are currently no plans to use mines in the Shield East program.
On June 25, Parliament passed the law authorizing the president to denounce the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines, as well as their destruction.
On June 30, President Volodymyr Zelenski signed a decree beginning the process of withdrawing Ukraine from the Treaty. The withdrawal from the Convention was jointly advocated in March by the defense ministers of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which took legal steps to terminate the agreement; Finland did likewise.
History of the Convention
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines, and on Their Destruction, also known as the Ottawa Treaty or the Ottawa Convention, was signed in Oslo in 1997 and officially initialed in Ottawa. It came into force on March 1, 1999, when it was signed by 40 countries. To date, more than 160 countries have ratified the treaty.
On June 25, the day the Polish Sejm voted to denounce the treaty, the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga joined the convention. Poland signed the convention in 1997 and ratified it in December 2012. In fulfilling its obligations under the convention, Poland has destroyed more than one million anti-personnel mines. However, China, Russia, the United States, Israel, North Korea, and South Korea have not joined the convention. Ukraine joined the convention but retained some mines and used them after the Russian invasion.
Author: Jakub Borowski
