Norway
Practice Relating to the Prohibition of Certain Types of Landmines
Norway’s Anti-Personnel Mines Act (1998) provides:
It is prohibited to use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile or transfer anti-personnel mines contrary to the Convention of 18 September 1997 on the prohibition, use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction.
Norway, Anti-Personnel Mines Act, 1998, §1.
In 1995, during a debate in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, Norway stated that it would “continue to work for a total ban on the production, stockpiling, trade and use of anti-personnel land-mines”.
Norway, Statement before the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, UN Doc. A/C.1/50/PV.6, 18 October 1995, p. 9.
Norway was one of the key members of the core group of countries that took responsibility for developing and promoting the mine ban treaty and played a central role in the “Ottawa Process” which led to the adoption of a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines in 1997. The Norwegian Government was instrumental in the shaping of the Final Declaration of the Brussels Conference on Anti-personnel Landmines in June 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=norway&pqs_section=; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Project list, mine related activities 1994–1998”.
The Norwegian Government also took on the responsibility of hosting the final treaty negotiations in Oslo from 1–18 September 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=norway&pqs_section=; Interview with official at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo, 22 December 1998.
In 2009, in a statement at the Second Review Conference of the Ottawa Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines, Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs stated:
Women, girls, boys and men are killed and injured by anti-personnel mines … every day.
There are still too many survivors who are denied basic human rights and are unable to live a life in dignity.
This is unacceptable and we are here … to ensure that this situation is brought to an end.
Compliance with the obligations of the Mine Ban Convention is the most effective way of doing so.
Norway, Statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Second Review Conference of the Ottawa Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines, Cartagena, Colombia, 3 December 2009.
