Published: 4 April 2025 Author: Stefan Talmon
In light of the unstable security environment marked by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its ongoing military threat to the Euro-Atlantic community, the Ministers of Defence of Poland and the three Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – on 18 March 2024 announced their countries’ intention to withdraw from the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (Ottawa Convention). At the time, the Convention had 133 parties. On 1 April 2025, Finland followed suit. The country’s prime minister wrote on the platform X: ‘Finland will prepare for the withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention.’
These announcements triggered questions about Germany’s position on the Ottawa Convention in light of the changing security environment. Germany had been a champion of the Convention for years. In response to a media enquiry, the Federal Ministry of Defence declared on 2 April 2025 that it had ‘taken note of’ the announcement by several NATO member States on the alliance’s eastern flank to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention. The Federal Ministry of Defence then stated:
The Federal Government maintains its position that as a party to the Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines Germany fully complies with the obligations under the Convention.
This raised the question of whether the German Army’s 45th Panzer Brigade stationed in Lithuania could in future hide behind anti-personnel mines laid by the Lithuanian army without violating the Ottawa Convention.
Under a broad interpretation of the term ‘use’ of anti-personnel mines in Article 1 (1) (a), a party to the Convention may not seek to benefit from anti-personnel mines laid by allies not bound by the Convention. Unlike Australia, Germany did not make a interpretative declaration that ‘in relation to Article 1(a), the term “use” means the actual physical emplacement of anti-personnel mines and does not include receiving an indirect or incidental benefit from anti-personnel mines laid by another State or person.’ It also did not declare, unlike several other NATO member States, that the mere participation in the planning or execution of operations by its armed forces or individual nationals, conducted in combination with the armed forces of States not party to the Ottawa Convention, which engage in activity prohibited under that Convention, is not, by itself, assistance, encouragement or inducement for the purposes of Article 1 (c) of the Convention.
It will be interesting to see how the Federal Government will position itself in future and whether it will argue that making strategic or tactical use of minefields laid by States not party to the Ottawa Convention does not constitute ‘use’ of mines in terms Article 1 (1) (a) of the Convention; and that the mere participation in the planning or execution of operations conducted in combination with the armed forces of States not party to the Convention, which engage in the laying of anti-personnel mines is not, by itself, assistance, encouragement or inducement for the purposes of Article 1 (c) of the Convention.
Category: News
