Georgia
Practice Relating to the Prohibition of Certain Types of Landmines
At the UN General Assembly in September 1996, the Georgian president, Eduard Shevardnadze, stated: “I, as the President of Georgia, declare that Georgia takes the obligation never to produce, use or import anti-personnel mines.”
Landmine Monitor Report 1999: Toward a Mine-Free World, available at http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php/publications/display?act=submit&pqs_year=1999&pqs_type=lm&pqs_report=georgia&pqs_section=; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, “Georgia and Problem of Anti-Personnel Mines”, June 1998.
Georgia attended the preparatory meetings for the adoption of a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. It also attended as an observer the Oslo negotiations in September 1997 which led to the adoption of a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines and the treaty signing conference in Ottawa, Canada, in December 1997. During the signing ceremony, the Georgian ambassador, Tedo Japaridze, stated:
Georgia believes that the human and social costs of antipersonnel mines far outweigh their military significance … Georgia … will in every way support and promote the ban on the use of the mines … Therefore, Georgia supports the Ottawa Process and its goal – the prohibition of use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and their destruction … [but] without financial and necessary technological assistance from other countries Georgia will not be able to fulfil its obligations under the Convention (particularly to destroy antipersonnel mines during 4 years) … Georgia believes that the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva should be the main forum for negotiating a global ban.
Landmine Monitor Report 1999: Toward a Mine-Free World, available at http://www.the-monitor.org/index.php/publications/display?act=submit&pqs_year=1999&pqs_type=lm&pqs_report=georgia&pqs_section=; Address of H.E. Tedo Japaridze, Ambassador of Georgia at the Signing Ceremony of the Ottawa Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines, December 1997.
