The Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended on 3 May 1996 (Amended Protocol II)

Background

The original Protocol II on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices was adopted in 1980 together with the framework Convention and Protocols I and III.  Yet, the subsequent increasing worldwide problem of landmines led to negotiations to amend the original Protocol II to better address this challenge, leading to the adoption of  Amended Protocol II at the closure of the First Review Conference on 3 May 1996 and entry into force on 3 December 1998.

Amended Protocol II strengthened existing rules on the use of mines, booby traps and other devices. However, the failure of the High Contracting Parties to reach consensus on a total prohibition of anti-personnel landmines at the time resulted in the negotiation and subsequent adoption of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, usually referred to as the Ottawa Convention or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty.

The original version of Protocol II remains in force for a limited number of States Parties which have not acceded to the amended version.

Objectives

The Protocol

• contains rules which regulate, but do not ban the use of landmines, booby-traps and other explosive devices;
• prohibits the use of non-detectable anti-personnel mines and their transfer;
• prohibits the use of non-self-destructing and non-self-deactivating mines outside fenced, monitored and marked areas;
• seeks to limit the indiscriminate damage caused by landmines and requires States Parties to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians when using these types of weapons;
• applies to non-international armed conflicts as well as conflicts between States, which means that its rules not only apply to States, but also to parties in a conflict other than States

Key Provisions

• Anti-personnel landmines must be placed in clearly marked and protected minefields or be equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms that disarm and render the mine unusable after a certain period of time.

• Mines dropped from aircraft or delivered by artillery or missiles must be outfitted with self-destruct and self-deactivation mechanisms.

• All anti-personnel mines must be detectable using common mine detection equipment to enable them to be located and safely removed after a conflict ends. The responsibility for clearing any mines is on the government controlling the territory where the mines are located.

• Prohibits the use of anti-personnel mines that do not contain a sufficient amount of metal to be detected with standard demining equipment and regulates the transfer of landmines.

• Prohibits the use of booby-traps and other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects, such as children’s toys, specifically designed to contain explosive material.

• Its technical annex contains requirements for recording, detectability, self-destruction and self-deactivation, as well as on international signs for minefields and mined areas.

Annual Conferences of the High Contracting Parties and meeting of the Group of Experts

Amended Protocol II (Certified true copy)

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