In March 2025, the defence ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland announced they would recommend withdrawal from the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty to their respective governments.
MAPW is a member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines-Cluster Munition Coalition and has endorsed the following statement.
As global civil society coalitions working to reduce the catastrophic impact of war through humanitarian disarmament, we express grave concern that the ministers of defense from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have called on their countries to withdraw from the Mine Ban Treaty. Withdrawal would increase the risk of civilian death and injury from an indiscriminate weapon of limited military utility. It would also threaten decades of progress on disarmament and international humanitarian law more broadly.
The Mine Ban Treaty laid the foundation for “humanitarian disarmament,” which seeks to reduce arms-inflicted human suffering and environmental harm. Since its adoption in 1997, the treaty has saved many thousands of lives, prevented tens of thousands of life-changing injuries, and remediated the harm experienced by survivors through prohibitions on antipersonnel landmines and obligations to destroy stockpiles, clear minefields, and assist victims. The Mine Ban Treaty has further inspired cooperative efforts to establish norms governing other weapons. States, civil society, and international organizations have collaborated to address the humanitarian impacts of autonomous weapons systems, cluster munitions, and nuclear weapons, as well as the arms trade and the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
While the states considering withdrawal from the Mine Ban Treaty have legitimate security concerns, abandoning a cornerstone of international law that underpins the protection of civilians during and after conflict is not the answer. At a time of heightened global conflict and challenges to multilateralism, states should recommit to humanitarian disarmament’s people-centered and cooperative approach. They should join forces to defend unequivocally the international law they collectively created and the humanitarian principles it embodies.
Signed by the following humanitarian disarmament campaigns:
- International Campaign to Ban Landmines-Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC)
- Control Arms
- International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
- International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW)
- Stop Killer Robots
International and regional organisations
- Anglican Pacifist Fellowship
- International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)
- Nukewatch
- Pacific Network on Globalisation
- Pax Christi International
- SEHLAC (Red de Seguridad Humana para América Latina y el Caribe)
- United Against Inhumanity
- Virtual Planet Africa
- Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
National organisations
Australia
- Hunter Peace Group
- Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia)
Belgium
- Pax Christi Flanders
Brazil
- Grupo de Práticas em Direitos Humanos e Direito Internacional
Canada
- Mines Action Canada
Colombia
- Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines
France
- ICAN France
Germany
- Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft – Vereinigte KriegsdienstgegnerInnen (DFG-VK)
Japan
- ANT-Hiroshima
Netherlands
- PAX
New Zealand
- Aotearoa New Zealand Campaign on Military Spending
- ICAN Aotearoa
- Peace Movement Aotearoa
Norway
- Norwegian People’s Aid
Peru
- Perú por el Desarme
Singapore
- beHuman
Spain
- Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau
- Comisión General Justicia y Paz
Sweden
- The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (Svenska Freds- och Skiljedomsföreningen)
Togo
- WILPF Togo
United Kingdom
- Action on Armed Violence (AOAV)
- Anethum Global
- Article 36
- Campaign Against Arms Trade
- Conflict and Environment Observatory
United States
- DAWN
- Hampton Roads Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
- RootsAction
- The United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society