Cameroon
Practice Relating to the Prohibition of Certain Types of Landmines
Cameroon’s Instructor’s Manual (2006) states:
Anti-personnel mines
The treaty on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines, signed on 4 December 1997 in Ottawa [1997 Ottawa Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines], entered into force on 1 March 1999. This treaty provides for the total prohibition without exception of anti-personnel mines, including a prohibition on their use, production, stockpiling, and transfer; without a distinction between “classical” anti-personnel mines and those which are programmed to neutralize themselves.
States parties to this Convention are obliged to retrieve all anti-personnel mines whose presence on their territory is proven or suspected. They [must] also engage in destroying any stockpile [of mines] which they possess or keep within their jurisdiction or under their control. In terms of delay, they have 4 years for the destruction of the stockpile and 10 years for the clearing of mined areas.
Cameroon, Droit des conflits armés et droit international humanitaire, Manuel de l’instructeur en vigueur dans les forces de défense, Ministère de la Défense, Présidence de la République, Etat-major des Armées, 2006, pp. 271–272, § 631
Cameroon was a key player in the “Ottawa Process” which led to the adoption of a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, participating in the International Strategy Conference in October 1996 and the OAU conference on landmines in Kempton Park, South Africa, in May 1997. It endorsed the Final Declaration of the Brussels Conference on Anti-personnel Landmines in June 1997 and participated actively in the Oslo negotiations in September 1997 which led to the adoption of a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, where it worked together with Belgium to modify the deadline for entry-into-force, reducing it from the proposed one year to six months.
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=cameroon&pqs_section=; Landmine Monitor Researcher interview with Iya Tidjani, Minister Counsellor, Cameroon Embassy, Brussels, 24 February 1999.
Cameroon voted in favour of the UN General Assembly resolutions in support of a ban on anti-personnel landmines in 1996 and 1997.
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=cameroon&pqs_section=.
