Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy and Human Security

Author(s): Jody Williams, Stephen D. Goose, Mary Wareham

Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham MD, 2008, pp. 148 (pb)

The first half of  this book by leading campaigners for the ban is focused on assessing what has been done to implement the Treaty to ban anti-personnel mines. The second half examines the impact of the landmines campaign on issues such as cluster munitions and is ability rights, as well as assessing  the contribution to 'human security'.

See also: Williams, Jody, 'The International Campaign to Ban Landmines - A Model for Disarmament Initiatives?', Nobel Peace Prize 1997. 3 Sept 1999.    

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1997/article/

Writing almost two years after the Mine Ban Treaty was agreed at Ottawa and signed immediately by over 120 governments, Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work together with ICBL, notes the achievement of NGOs in getting a governmental ban on conventional weapons  in widespread use.  She discusses succinctly aspects of the five year campaign that could become a model for the future. Williams stresses the importance of the post-cold war global context; the loose structure of the ICBL as a coalition of other bodies, which was, nevertheless, able to meet regularly and plan strategy; and the role of face to face meetings in achieving close relationships between NGOs and sympathetic governments.     

See also: 'More Anti-Land Mine Work Ahead, say Nobel Prize Winners', CNN World News, 10 Dec. 1997.

Report quotes Williams on scale of  problem remaining - 'tends of millions of mines in 70 countries...affecting lives on a daily basis' - and notes Cambodia represented at the ceremony by land mine activist who had  lost his legs. CNN also summarizes speech by a former British soldier and ICBL activist on next steps: getting 40 countries to ratify to bring the treaty into effect, pressurizing major non-signatories and cleaning up the landmines on the ground.