Landmines

Since its adoption in 2008, 123 nations have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The United States isn’t one of them.

Anti-personnel landmines are “designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person and that will incapacitate, injure or kill one or more persons.” As they are not able to distinguish between civilians and combatants, are hard to safely destroy or remove, and often fail to self-destruct or self-deactivate, landmines continue to inflict human suffering long after a conflict ends.

On June 21, 2022 President Biden announced a near-global ban on anti-personnel landmine use by the United States, fulfilling his campaign promise to reverse the Trump administration’s anti-personnel landmine policy.

Biden has restored the near-global ban on these militarily ineffective weapons, but enshrined their continued use in South Korea.

On June 21, President Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to reverse the Trump administration’s anti-personnel landmine policy by announcing a new near-global ban on anti-personnel landmine use by the U.S. military.

For decades, FCNL has worked to ban the use of landmines, which maim and kill indiscriminately, inflicting human suffering even long after conflict ends.

Russia is using landmines in Ukraine — and the US is in no position to criticize.

In the last two years, FCNL constituents have sent Congress over a thousand letters urging lawmakers to speak out against landmines. Yet despite President Biden’s campaign promises, the policy remains unchanged.

Two years ago this week, the Trump administration revised government policy on anti-personnel landmines to allow the U.S. military to employ, develop, produce, and acquire these indiscriminate and immoral weapons.

Landmines are ineffective, immoral, and recklessly negligent weapons because they do not discriminate between combatants and civilians. Even as U.S. taxpayers fund the removal of landmines globally, the Biden administration is allowing the U.S. military to develop and deploy new ones.