While Pope Leo continues to eaten his closeness to the Ukrainian people and to pray for the end of “an senseless war” from Ukraine come news about the recrudescence of the conflict.
A few hours after the widespread news of a massive drone attack in the night on Kiyv between Saturday and Sunday, Ukraine announces the renunciation of the call for anti -human mines and the exit from the Ottawa Convention: “Today Ukraine has decided to retire from the Ottawa Convention that prohibits anti -human mines. This is a signal for all neighboring countries with Russia ». RBC-Ukraine wrote by quoting a statement by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. “Today I signed a decree that implements the decision of the Council for National Security and the defense of Ukraine regarding the Ottawa Convention, the agreement that prohibits anti -human mines. Russia has never joined this convention and uses anti -human mines in an extremely cynical way. And not only now, in the war against Ukraine, “observed the president.
The Ottowanvieta Convention The use, detention, production and transfer of mines and requires the destruction of existing stocks as well as assistance to the victims of their use. Kiev takes a step back compared to the Ottawa convention in the wake of other countries that have made similar decisions such as Poland and Baltic countries, including Lithuania, Estonia and Finland.
Farnesina recalls that the agreement ended in 1997 and entered into force in 1999, was initially ratified by 164 states, including Italy. Among the members of the Convention, however, there are no significant countries: China, Russian Federation, India, Pakistan, Republic of Korea and the United States.
But the effectiveness of the treaty is subject to its universalization. Serious concerns arouses the widespread use of these types of weapons, which have a very heavy and long impact on civilians especially children, by actors other than states, who are also able to produce them on their own or to resort to devices of circumstances known as improvised explosive devices (Improvised Explosive Devices – IEDS). Other current work areas concern the destruction of stocks, the reclamation of the mined areas (and related requests for extension to the final terms to achieve these objectives), the transparency measures and, above all, the assistance to the victims. Stock destruction: The Convention commits the States part of the destruction of all the anti -employment mines in their possession or under their control, “as soon as possible” but in any case no later than four years from the entry into force of the Treaty for the State concerned.
The only exception to the provisions on destruction concerns mine that can be held for training purposes relating to detection, reclamation or elimination techniques and in in any case minimal numbers necessary for these purposes. To date, 157 Member States have eliminated the entirety of their deposits, which cumulatively count over 47 million devices. The Treaty requires its members the identification of the contaminated areas, their reporting and delimitation that guarantees the protection of civilians until the remediation process has ended. The total reclamation must intervene within 10 years from the entry into force of the Convention for the State concerned, unless the request for extension which, however, cannot exceed a further period of 10 years. The provisions on the assistance to the victims are of central importance in the Ottawa Convention and, at the time of its negotiation, they represented a novelty in the panorama of disarming tools and armaments control.
