The Landmine Monitor 2022 cover photo shows an Uganda victim assistance rehabilitation expert calling attention to gaps in services for landmine survivors at the “Broken Chair” at the United Nations in Geneva. Credit: Jared Bloch | ICBL-CMC, 2022.
However, by 1997 the ICBL and Jody Williams were making local, national, and international headlines. Day by day and week by week they built support for banning one of the most commonly used weapons in the world. Their efforts that year led to the adoption of the Mine Ban Treaty and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICBL and its coordinator.
In June 1998, the ICBL decided to monitor the progress of the treaty’s implementation as well as the status of landmine use, production, and impact around the world. That decision resulted in the creation of the Landmine Monitor annual reports.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first Landmine Monitor. It was released in Maputo, Mozambique, on May 3, 1999, during the opening ceremonies of the First Meeting of States Parties (1MSP) of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Over the past quarter century, the report has served as an effective tool for analysis and accountability, and each volume has generated headlines around the world. It has also influenced the monitoring of other humanitarian disarmament treaties. Revisiting the publication’s history at this point offers lessons on how to develop a powerful monitoring mechanism and how civil society can collaborate to maximize its impact.
Laying the Foundations
The Landmine Monitor was an unprecedented initiative of the ICBL. In 1997 when it started to become apparent that negotiations of the Mine Ban Treaty would be successful, some in governments and the ICBL started thinking about the implementation of the treaty. One area of concern was compliance with the obligations of the treaty. The Mine Ban Treaty does not have a formal monitoring or verification regime. Bob Lawson then of Canada’s foreign affairs department and Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch together “laid the groundwork for the establishment of a civil-society based system to verify Mine Ban Treaty implementation.”1 This system became the Landmine Monitor, and its development was entrusted to a Core Group of five ICBL members: Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, the Kenya Coalition Against Landmines, Mines Action Canada, and Norwegian People’s Aid.
The Mine Ban Treaty opened for signature on December 3, 1997, in Ottawa, Canada, and a very energetic and intense universalization effort followed. The ICBL, supportive states, UN agencies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross all contributed in their own ways to promoting the landmine ban. Those efforts were fruitful, and the number of states that agreed to be formally bound by the Mine Ban Treaty grew quickly. The summer of 1998 was a very busy one for campaigners with most of the ICBL staff and members working on universalization of the treaty. At the same time, the Monitor Core Group was trying to create a new research and monitoring initiative from scratch.
When I started work as the executive director of Mines Action Canada on July 5, 1998, it was the first time, I learned of the Landmine Monitor initiative. I was told, “We do not think it will be too much work,” which turned out to be a considerable understatement.
I think it is fair to say that most of us in the Core Group did not really understand what we had agreed to do. Fortunately, Human Rights Watch had experience producing an annual global report. Mary Wareham and Steve Goose, both of Human Rights Watch, became the coordinator and final editor, respectively.
While the Core Group issued a call for researchers, Mary and the Human Rights Watch team produced a logo, a Landmine Monitor section for the ICBL website, and a 10-page introductory booklet. Handicap International took the lead on victim assistance, Norwegian People’s Aid on clearance, with the Kenya Coalition Against Landmines and Mines Action Canada helping with regional coordination. As a group we organized a meeting of campaigners interested in the Monitor initiative for mid-September 1998. After Burkina Faso became the 40th country to ratify the Mine Ban Treaty in September 1998, it meant the treaty would enter into force (become binding international law) on March 1, 1999. It was fantastic news, but it also added to the urgency to create a research network, guidelines, timelines, and an editorial team.
Over the next six months, the Core Group hired researchers, convened multiple times, and joined celebrations of the treaty’s entry into force. During the first week of March 1999, the Core Group met again, this time in Oslo, Norway, to start the editing process of all the research reports as well as to prepare for the production of the first report.
Launch of the Monitor
In about four weeks’ time the group produced the 1,071-page Landmine Monitor Report1999. The timeline was so tight the Human Rights Watch team had to take the books on their flights to Maputo. I recall some boxes were also shipped from the printer in Vermont, USA, to Mines Action Canada in Ottawa, and we brought them in our check-in luggage to save on cargo charges.
As this was the first time anything like this had ever been done, there was no agreed way to formally hand over the report to the 1MSP. We decided that during the opening ceremonies the ICBL Ambassadors would present a copy to Mozambique President Joaquim Alberto Chissano. While they did that, members of the Core Group and other campaigners quietly walked around the conference placing a copy at the flag of each state delegation. “The room fell silent as diplomats flipped through the pages to their country entry—each one curious to see how their country was portrayed on the landmine issue.”2
I have a very clear memory of being surrounded by the whole Canadian diplomatic delegation, at the lunch break that day, as they made sure I knew how unhappy they were that the Canada report was not all glowing and positive. Canada was not alone in its displeasure, but eventually states came to understand the Monitor took a very factual based approach to its reporting. The annual reports provide a very good baseline of information from which we can all gauge progress and make plans for our mutual goal of a landmine-free world.
A Lasting Impact
A lot of people at the 1MSP were surprised by what the ICBL had produced, and the Landmine Monitor soon became an integral part of the treaty structure as well the de facto monitoring and verification mechanism for the treaty. Although there were some concerns initially within the ICBL regarding whether it should or even could undertake this role, in my opinion the Monitor increased the ICBL’s credibility and visibility. Each year on its release the report brings the world’s attention to the landmine situation, the progress of the treaty, and the collective efforts to ban the weapon.
The Monitor showed states and decision-makers that the perspective of civil society was essential in disarmament and that field-based research was vital to those efforts. The Landmine Monitor helped open the door for other campaigns to make their research and assessments as important, perhaps more, than other information sources. It inspired a Cluster Munition Monitor, an Arms Trade Treaty Monitor, a Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, and an Explosive Weapons Monitor. Other civil society organizations also produce important research informing policies, practices, funding, and protocols, such as Action on Armed Violence’s Explosive Violence Monitor and the Mine Action Review jointly produced by Mines Advisory Group, The HALO Trust, and Norwegian People’s Aid.
Different campaigns’ application and adaptation of the ICBL’s people-centered approach focusing on the humanitarian impact of weapons has evolved into what we now call humanitarian disarmament. Similarly, the ICBL’s decision to use a civil society perspective to monitor a disarmament treaty’s implementation and universalization opened a window to a new way to research and monitor the effectiveness and impact of the humanitarian approach to disarmament.
Sometimes a decision or two themselves may not make headlines, but they can result in decades of headlines, valuable information, and tools for change.
Paul Hannon, former executive director, Mines Action Canada, and former vice chair, ICBL-CMC
In October 1992 six organizations—Handicap International (now known as Humanity & Inclusion), Human Rights Watch, Medico International, Mines Advisory Group, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation—agreed to form a global campaign to address the crisis caused by antipersonnel landmines. Their decision to establish the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) did not make headlines. Nor did the fact that Jody Williams would be the founding coordinator.
However, by 1997 the ICBL and Jody Williams were making local, national, and international headlines. Day by day and week by week they built support for banning one of the most commonly used weapons in the world. Their efforts that year led to the adoption of the Mine Ban Treaty and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICBL and its coordinator.
In June 1998, the ICBL decided to monitor the progress of the treaty’s implementation as well as the status of landmine use, production, and impact around the world. That decision resulted in the creation of the Landmine Monitor annual reports.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first Landmine Monitor. It was released in Maputo, Mozambique, on May 3, 1999, during the opening ceremonies of the First Meeting of States Parties (1MSP) of the Mine Ban Treaty.
Over the past quarter century, the report has served as an effective tool for analysis and accountability, and each volume has generated headlines around the world. It has also influenced the monitoring of other humanitarian disarmament treaties. Revisiting the publication’s history at this point offers lessons on how to develop a powerful monitoring mechanism and how civil society can collaborate to maximize its impact.
Laying the Foundations
The Landmine Monitor was an unprecedented initiative of the ICBL. In 1997 when it started to become apparent that negotiations of the Mine Ban Treaty would be successful, some in governments and the ICBL started thinking about the implementation of the treaty. One area of concern was compliance with the obligations of the treaty. The Mine Ban Treaty does not have a formal monitoring or verification regime. Bob Lawson then of Canada’s foreign affairs department and Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch together “laid the groundwork for the establishment of a civil-society based system to verify Mine Ban Treaty implementation.”1 This system became the Landmine Monitor, and its development was entrusted to a Core Group of five ICBL members: Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, the Kenya Coalition Against Landmines, Mines Action Canada, and Norwegian People’s Aid.
The Mine Ban Treaty opened for signature on December 3, 1997, in Ottawa, Canada, and a very energetic and intense universalization effort followed. The ICBL, supportive states, UN agencies, and the International Committee of the Red Cross all contributed in their own ways to promoting the landmine ban. Those efforts were fruitful, and the number of states that agreed to be formally bound by the Mine Ban Treaty grew quickly. The summer of 1998 was a very busy one for campaigners with most of the ICBL staff and members working on universalization of the treaty. At the same time, the Monitor Core Group was trying to create a new research and monitoring initiative from scratch.
When I started work as the executive director of Mines Action Canada on July 5, 1998, it was the first time, I learned of the Landmine Monitor initiative. I was told, “We do not think it will be too much work,” which turned out to be a considerable understatement.
I think it is fair to say that most of us in the Core Group did not really understand what we had agreed to do. Fortunately, Human Rights Watch had experience producing an annual global report. Mary Wareham and Steve Goose, both of Human Rights Watch, became the coordinator and final editor, respectively.
While the Core Group issued a call for researchers, Mary and the Human Rights Watch team produced a logo, a Landmine Monitor section for the ICBL website, and a 10-page introductory booklet. Handicap International took the lead on victim assistance, Norwegian People’s Aid on clearance, with the Kenya Coalition Against Landmines and Mines Action Canada helping with regional coordination. As a group we organized a meeting of campaigners interested in the Monitor initiative for mid-September 1998. After Burkina Faso became the 40th country to ratify the Mine Ban Treaty in September 1998, it meant the treaty would enter into force (become binding international law) on March 1, 1999. It was fantastic news, but it also added to the urgency to create a research network, guidelines, timelines, and an editorial team.
Over the next six months, the Core Group hired researchers, convened multiple times, and joined celebrations of the treaty’s entry into force. During the first week of March 1999, the Core Group met again, this time in Oslo, Norway, to start the editing process of all the research reports as well as to prepare for the production of the first report.
Launch of the Monitor
In about four weeks’ time the group produced the 1,071-page Landmine Monitor Report 1999. The timeline was so tight the Human Rights Watch team had to take the books on their flights to Maputo. I recall some boxes were also shipped from the printer in Vermont, USA, to Mines Action Canada in Ottawa, and we brought them in our check-in luggage to save on cargo charges.
As this was the first time anything like this had ever been done, there was no agreed way to formally hand over the report to the 1MSP. We decided that during the opening ceremonies the ICBL Ambassadors would present a copy to Mozambique President Joaquim Alberto Chissano. While they did that, members of the Core Group and other campaigners quietly walked around the conference placing a copy at the flag of each state delegation. “The room fell silent as diplomats flipped through the pages to their country entry—each one curious to see how their country was portrayed on the landmine issue.”2
I have a very clear memory of being surrounded by the whole Canadian diplomatic delegation, at the lunch break that day, as they made sure I knew how unhappy they were that the Canada report was not all glowing and positive. Canada was not alone in its displeasure, but eventually states came to understand the Monitor took a very factual based approach to its reporting. The annual reports provide a very good baseline of information from which we can all gauge progress and make plans for our mutual goal of a landmine-free world.
A Lasting Impact
A lot of people at the 1MSP were surprised by what the ICBL had produced, and the Landmine Monitor soon became an integral part of the treaty structure as well the de facto monitoring and verification mechanism for the treaty. Although there were some concerns initially within the ICBL regarding whether it should or even could undertake this role, in my opinion the Monitor increased the ICBL’s credibility and visibility. Each year on its release the report brings the world’s attention to the landmine situation, the progress of the treaty, and the collective efforts to ban the weapon.
The Monitor showed states and decision-makers that the perspective of civil society was essential in disarmament and that field-based research was vital to those efforts. The Landmine Monitor helped open the door for other campaigns to make their research and assessments as important, perhaps more, than other information sources. It inspired a Cluster Munition Monitor, an Arms Trade Treaty Monitor, a Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor, and an Explosive Weapons Monitor. Other civil society organizations also produce important research informing policies, practices, funding, and protocols, such as Action on Armed Violence’s Explosive Violence Monitor and the Mine Action Review jointly produced by Mines Advisory Group, The HALO Trust, and Norwegian People’s Aid.
Different campaigns’ application and adaptation of the ICBL’s people-centered approach focusing on the humanitarian impact of weapons has evolved into what we now call humanitarian disarmament. Similarly, the ICBL’s decision to use a civil society perspective to monitor a disarmament treaty’s implementation and universalization opened a window to a new way to research and monitor the effectiveness and impact of the humanitarian approach to disarmament.
Sometimes a decision or two themselves may not make headlines, but they can result in decades of headlines, valuable information, and tools for change.
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