Nicaragua
Practice Relating to the Prohibition of Certain Types of Landmines
Nicaragua’s Law on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines (1999) provides: “The purpose of this Act is to establish a ban on the production, purchase, sale, import, export, transit, use, installation or possession of antipersonnel landmines.”
Nicaragua, Law on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines, 1999, Article 1.
In 1995, during a debate in the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, Nicaragua stated: “The definitive solution to the problem created by mines and other devices in various parts of the world lies in a total ban on the production, stockpiling, exportation and proliferation of such inhumane weapons.”
Nicaragua, Statement before the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, UN Doc. A/C.1/50/PV.11, 26 October 1995, p. 14.
Nicaragua was one of the early backers of a ban on anti-personnel landmines, first announcing its support for an immediate, comprehensive ban at a UN conference on mine clearance in Geneva, Switzerland, in July 1995. In September 1996, it joined with other Central American nations in declaring the region a mine-free zone in a statement signed by each nation’s Foreign Minister, committing not to produce, trade or use anti-personnel mines. Nicaragua attended all of the preparatory meetings which led to the adoption of a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, 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. Nicaragua voted in favour of the UN General Assembly resolutions in support of a ban on anti-personnel landmines in 1996, 1997 and 1998, as well as the relevant OAS resolutions.
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=nicaragua&pqs_section=.
At the 27th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in 1999, Nicaragua stated that it would
work for prompt ratification of the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and its Protocols … [and] continue to work unsparingly for mine clearance with a view to making the region a mine-free zone and help mine-blast victims fully reintegrate into society.
Nicaragua, Statement at the 27th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Geneva, 31 October–6 November 1999.
