Statement: Backtracking on the Ottawa Treaty, Poland’s Landmine Decision Endangers Civilians

Poland announced Thursday plans to produce one million landmines. This follows the decision it made last week, along with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty—a global agreement banning anti-personnel landmines—aimed at bolstering the countries' defences along their eastern borders with Russia and Belarus.

HI, a founding member and leading organization in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, strongly condemns Poland’s landmine production plan, which risks civilian lives and undermines the global ban. Below is HI’s statement on Poland’s decision.

We are dismayed by such a decision that overestimates the questionable military advantage of landmines and underestimates their costs on civilians’ lives. Anti-personnel mines disproportionately harm civilians. They render land unusable for agriculture, block access to essential services, and cause casualties, decades after conflicts end. Their use is devastating for civilian populations. Removing landmines is an expensive, complicated, and lengthy process. Additionally, the new production of landmines would make this weapon more accessible and easier to acquire.

We urge the Polish government to reverse this decision, which normalizes a weapon that has been prohibited since 1999, when the Ottawa Treaty entered into force, and thereby fragilizes the Treaty. The consequences of such a decision for civilians will be vast. It is worth mentioning that the United States has not joined the Ottawa Convention.

Ottawa has been incredibly effective in protecting civilians and drying up the landmine market, a weapon that was almost no longer produced. Landmine casualties dropped dramatically, falling from 25,000 per year in 1999 to just 5,000 in 2023, a fivefold decrease.