Our planet must be undermined.

• Position: Current efforts by the UN and the international community regarding landmines - Includes related article on UN trust fund for mine clearing operations

A report on current global efforts and what the UN is doing

Anti-personnel landmines kill or maim an estimated 30,000 people each year. Most victims are civilians. People in some 70 countries live with the constant threat of millions of landmines and pieces of "unexploded ordnance" - shells, grenades, rockets and other explosive devices left in the wake of war.

Progress in clearing the estimated 110 million mines and pieces of unexploded ordnance already in the ground depends on slowing and eventually stopping the planting of new landmines. The urgency is reflected not in numbers of landmines to be cleared, but in the needless suffering, damage and economic hardship they cause. Every hour of every day a person somewhere - most often a civilian - is killed by a landmine; 10,000 are killed and twice as many are injured each year. The presence of mines cuts the productivity of agricultural land and can make roads and other critical infrastructure dangerous or unusable.

Dealing with the mines already in the ground is the United Nations most immediate priority. These silent killers can impoverish entire communities. They deny people access to their land and make roads and infrastructure virtually useless. Development itself is held hostage. The presence, or even the fear of the presence, of a single landmine can prevent cultivation of fertile fields, robbing families or entire villages of their livelihood.

On 3 December, in Ottawa, Canada, the new Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of AntiPersonnel Mines and on their Destruction opened for signature.

RELATED ARTICLE: Agreement, yes, but action? How fast the track?

A coalition of like-minded States, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international institutions has achieved a major step towards bringing the crisis under control. The Convention is the product of a "fast-track" negotiating process initiated by Canada in 1996, and supported by a groundswell of public opinion against landmines.

The "fast track" was taken in October 1996 after a conference to review an earlier international agreement, the UN Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects, concluded in May 1996. Usually referred to as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons or "CCW", this Convention was adopted by the General Assembly in 1980 and is the only international agreement already in force which specifically relates to landmines.

The CCW Review Conference tightened provisions of the 1980 Conventions Protocol II on...