The Military Utility of Landmines

The Military Utility of Landmines
Author: Stephen D. Biddle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1994
Genre: Arms control
ISBN:

"This briefing evaluates the military utility of landmines in high intensity, mechanized land warfare and draws implications from this for landmine arms control. While military utility is clearly only one of wide range of issues bearing on the advisability of any particular arms control proposal, it has nevertheless played an unusually important role in the debate to date. While IDA is continuing a broader assessment of this issue, it is hoped that this more narrowly focused analysis will shed some important, if necessary partial, light on that broader debate. The basic conclusion of the briefing is that issues of military utility in high intensity conflict need not preclude further consideration of landmine arms control. A rather demanding set of assumptions and preconditions is required for the military utility of landmines in such conflicts to be so high as to make arms control unworthy of further consideration requires as especially demanding set of assumptions about the nature of future warfare. It is far from obvious that the required assumptions can be sustained."--Abstract

The Antipersonnel Landmines Convention and the Evolving Politics of Arms Control

The Antipersonnel Landmines Convention and the Evolving Politics of Arms Control
Author: Seth R. Deam
Publisher:
Total Pages: 69
Release: 2001-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781423550648

The setting and cast of characters involved in arms control have changed since the end of the Cold War. Changes in world dynamics occurring in tandem with globalization have brought about an increasing focus on human rights and human security. National borders and state sovereignty, still the foundation of our current international system, are declining in importance with these trends in globalization. This trend flowed into the arena of arms control in 1997 by banning a weapon stockpiled and used in almost every nation's military. This paper seeks to answer questions concerning these changes and about the implications of the 1997 Antipersonnel Landmine Convention as an example of a possible new framework for arms control. This paper seeks to answer the questions of whether or not the Ottawa Convention was an aberration or is likely to become a new way of doing business. It also seeks to understand the likelihood that certain weapon systems will become the target of such a future ban. From this analysis, this paper seeks to increase awareness of the Air Force and DoD with regard to international and domestic political contexts facilitating such a framework. The author provides general recommendations concerning U.S. policy approach with regard to conventional weapons and arms control negotiations.

Disarming States

Disarming States
Author: Kenneth R. Rutherford
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2010-12-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

This book provides a detailed history of the global movement to ban anti-personnel landmines (APL), marking the first case of a successful worldwide civil society movement to end the use of an entire category of weapons. In March 1995, Belgium became the first state to pass a domestic anti-personnel landmine ban. In December 1997, 122 states joined Belgium in signing the comprehensive Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Treaty. The movement to ban landmines became a turning point in global politics that continues to influence policy and strategy decisions regarding weapon use today. Disarming States: The International Movement to Ban Landmines describes how non-government organizations (NGOs) brought the landmine issue to international attention by forming the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). The author presents new information gleaned from interviews and intensive research conducted around the world. The critical role of mid-size states—such as Austria, Canada, and Switzerland—recruited to back the movement's goals is examined. The book concludes by examining how NGOs affect the international political agenda, especially in seeking legal prohibitions on weapons and changes in states' behaviors.

Banning Landmines

Banning Landmines
Author: Jody Williams
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780742562417

Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy, and Human Security looks at accomplishments and setbacks in the crucial first decade of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The first half of the book considers the implementation of the prohibitions and humanitarian assistance provisions of the treaty, as well as efforts to promote universal acceptance of the treaty among governments and non-state armed groups. The second half of this book considers the impact of the landmine movement on other issues (such as cluster munitions and disability rights), as well as the extent to which it has contributed to the field of human security. Edited by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams and two other long-time leaders of the mine ban movement, Stephen Goose and Mary Wareham, Banning Landmines features contributions by grassroots activists, diplomatic negotiators, mine survivors, arms experts, and human rights defenders. This diverse group of writers at the forefront of the landmine ban movement is well placed to provide insights into this remarkable process, its precedents, and implications for other work and issues.

Arms Control Policy

Arms Control Policy
Author: Marie Isabelle Chevrier
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2012-08-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1567207111

In this work, an expert on biological weapons offers a thoughtful examination of the political and technical issues that have affected the implementation of arms control agreements from the 1960s to the present. Arms Control Policy: A Guide to the Issues examines the history of the major arms control treaties since the early 1960s. It offers readers a broad understanding of the ways in which arms control agreements were negotiated and implemented during the Cold War, the international and national events that affected treaty negotiation and implementation, and how the arms control landscape has changed in the war's aftermath. Specifically, the handbook overviews the obligations contained in bilateral U.S.-Soviet/Russian and multilateral arms control agreements covering nuclear and nonnuclear weapons. It also treats such agreements as the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Treaty to Ban Land Mines, and the Treaty to Ban Cluster Munitions. The book concludes with a look at the current challenges in the implementation of arms control agreements and the future of arms control.

International Law, Politics, and Inhumane Weapons

International Law, Politics, and Inhumane Weapons
Author: Alan Bryden
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415622050

This book contributes to contemporary debates on the effectiveness of international humanitarian law (IHL) in regulating or prohibiting inhumane weapons, such as landmines. Two treaties have emerged under IHL in response to the humanitarian scourge of landmines. However, despite a considerable body of related literature, clear understandings have not been established on the effectiveness of these international legal frameworks in meeting the challenges that prompted their creation. This book seeks to address this lacuna. An analytical framework grounded in regime theory helps move beyond the limitations in the current literature through a structured focus on principles, norms, rules, procedures, actors and issue areas. On the one hand, this clarifies how political considerations determine opportunities and constraints in designing and implementing IHL regimes. On the other, it enables us to explore how and why 'ideal' policy prescriptions are threatened when faced with complex challenges in post-conflict contexts. This book will be of much interest to students of international humanitarian law, global governance, human security and IR in general.

Landmines and Human Security

Landmines and Human Security
Author: Richard A. Matthew
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0791483991

An impressive array of activists, scholars, government officials, journalists, and landmine victims themselves are gathered here to tell the dramatic and inspiring story of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). Organized in the early 1990s, the ICBL is a network of more than one thousand nongovernmental organizations worldwide, working for a global ban on landmines. It was an important force behind the treaty to ban antipersonnel landmines that was signed in Ottawa in 1997, and which led to its being awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, along with its coordinator.

Commentaries on Arms Control Treaties: The convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction

Commentaries on Arms Control Treaties: The convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction
Author: Stuart Maslen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2004
Genre: Law
ISBN:

This commentary is a detailed guide to the interpretation of the 1997 Convention banning Anti-Personnel Mines, which was adopted after a worldwide campaign to ban landmines made famous by the late Princess Diana. It includes a description of the development of anti-personnel mines, their military utility, and the negotiating history of the Convention.