Côte d’Ivoire
Practice Relating to the Prohibition of Certain Types of Landmines
Côte d’Ivoire’s Teaching Manual (2007) provides in Book I (Basic instruction):
The principle of limitation determines permitted means and prohibited means.
…
- What are the prohibited means and methods of warfare?
- All weapons which cause unnecessary suffering to individuals and excessive damage to populations and their goods,
For example: Anti-personnel mines, asphyxiating gases, chemical weapons, etc.
Côte d’Ivoire, Droit de la guerre, Manuel d’instruction, Livre I: Instruction de base, Ministère de la Défense, Forces Armées Nationales, November 2007, pp. 15–16.
In Book IV (Instruction of heads of division and company commanders), the Teaching Manual provides:
II.1.3. Anti-personnel landmines
The possession or use of anti-personnel landmines is prohibited by the Convention on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines signed in 1997.
“Anti-personnel mine” means a mine designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons.
…
Every mine which inflicts wounds or death when an inoffensive act is made by a non-combatant is comprised in the definition of anti-personnel mine above.
Côte d’Ivoire, Droit de la guerre, Manuel d’instruction, Livre IV: Instruction du chef de section et du commandant de compagnie, Manuel de l’élève, Ministère de la Défense, Forces Armées Nationales, November 2007, p. 52.
In 1995, during a debate in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, Côte d’Ivoire stated that it felt it was “time to think about an international agreement prohibiting the production, utilization and transfer of mines”.
Côte d’Ivoire, Statement before the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, UN Doc. A/C.1/50/PV.6, 18 October 1995, p. 2.
Côte d’Ivoire endorsed the Final Declaration of the Brussels Conference on Anti-personnel Landmines in June 1997 and was a full participant in the Oslo negotiations in September 1997 which led to the adoption of a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. It voted in favour of the UN General Assembly resolutions in support of a ban on anti-personnel landmines in 1996, 1997 and 1998.
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=cote_divoire&pqs_section=.
