Portfolio Advocacy on Mines and Cluster Munitions

In the field of humanitarian mine action, NPA is one of very few organizations on a global scale that are active both in operational clearance and in advocacy.  To NPA, field operations and advocacy are mutually reinforcing activities, both aimed at changing realities on the ground. Every single mine and UXO removed from the ground improves living conditions for post-conflict populations. But it is of equal humanitarian importance to develop international legislation that will prevent or reduce further contamination with mines, cluster munitions and other UXO. And it is of equal humanitarian importance to continuously influence states to respect and implement this legislation.

NPA’s advocacy ambitions are based on knowledge garnered in clearance operations. Early on, we brought vital field experience and perspectives to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), and currently we are taking a central part in the new campaign to ban cluster munitions.

For clearing organizations, the challenge consists not only of mines, but also to a large degree of UXO. NPA has seen first hand in our operations that in ever more situations, it is unexploded bomblets from cluster munitions that are the most widespread and difficult type of UXO.  We also know that more than 70 countries have cluster munitions containing several billion unreliable bomblets. If their proliferation and use continues, the result will be tens of millions of unexploded bomblets and a humanitarian crisis even worse than the plague caused by landmines.

As a clearance operator, NPA cannot watch the contamination caused by cluster munitions to continue to build up, while we and other organizations are working hard to rid the world of mines. We have therefore taken an active role as Co-Chair of the Cluster Munitions Coalition, a network of more than 200 organizations worldwide working to ban cluster munitions.  

More than 90 states are currently engaged in the so-called Oslo process to ban cluster munitions, which aims to conclude an international treaty banning cluster munitions by the end of 2008. NPA is deeply involved in this process, again bringing field experience and knowledge to the attention of states. Our advocacy work to this end is informed in particular by detailed research that we have carried out on the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions in Serbia and Lebanon.