European Leadership Network: Commentary on Mine Ban Treaty withdraw

Mary Wareham and Laura Lodenius:

Commentary | 16 June 2025
Leaving the Landmine Ban Treaty puts civilians at risk:

” On 1 April 2025, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo announced Finland’s intent to withdraw as one of the 165 countries supporting the Mine Ban Treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention. This week, members of parliament look set to vote a final time to adopt draft legislation approving the withdrawal.

Poland’s parliament is also considering a bill to withdraw from the treaty after Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced measures aimed at bolstering his country’s defence, warning, “We are facing a very serious race, and it is a race for security.”

Finland and Poland both have first-hand experience of the long-term danger caused by antipersonnel landmines, yet they are poised to walk back decades of progress eradicating these indiscriminate weapons. Re-embracing antipersonnel landmines after rejecting them on humanitarian grounds is a catastrophic step backwards for the protection of civilians. The treaty withdrawals threaten to erode fundamental tenets of international humanitarian and human rights law. ”

… READ – > here the commentary -paper 

 

European Leadership Network

Founded in 2011, the ELN builds better security for wider Europe through its research, publications, events, practical policy advocacy, media reach and high-level networks. It concentrates on what it judges to be the gravest risks to Europe’s security and on the risks where it assesses that it can make the greatest difference.

It was formed by pragmatic people in pursuit of this vision. They believed that a network of experienced public figures committed to practical, cooperative solutions to common existential security problems could make as much of a difference as national governments.