The Campaign for
Landmine Justice
The Campaign for
Landmine Justice
AIM
Our aim is to achieve United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) recognition of the rights of landmine victims to compensation from companies that manufacture mines and countries that lay them.
The use of landmines has serious negative and long-term impacts on individuals, their families, and wider communities. In 2022 alone, 4,710 people were injured or killed by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) across 49 states. The vast majority of landmine victims, around 85 percent in 2022, are civilian non-combatants and roughly half of those injured were children*.
Landmine victims overwhelmingly come from economically marginalised communities impacted by or recovering from the effects of armed conflict. The continued presence of landmines and other unexploded ordinances act as a barrier to normal and social economic life in the areas where they have been planted and complicate rebuilding efforts in former conflict zones.
Not only do they threaten the lives and prosperity of those who live near them, these weapons also serve as an enduring danger to future generations for as long as they remain uncleared. Put simply, a war isn’t over until the threat of landmines has been eradicated.
It is for this reason that we believe that more needs to be done to hold landmine manufacturers and the state actors that fund them accountable for the long-term threat that their weapons pose to human life. At present, there is an absence of an international framework that would compel those whose production and use of landmines have caused death or injury to pay compensation to their victims.
This perpetuates two major injustices: victims and their families are left to struggle with the cost of rebuilding shattered lives, with no hope of redress, and state actors can effectively lay landmines with impunity. The principle of ‘polluter pays’ must therefore be enforced as an added disincentive to indiscriminate, industrial-scale landmine deployment. The Campaign for Landmine Justice will battle until this goal is achieved.
*Source: Landmine Monitor 2023 report by International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
AIM
Our aim is to achieve United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) recognition of the rights of landmine victims to compensation from companies that manufacture mines and countries that lay them.
The use of landmines has serious negative and long-term impacts on individuals, their families, and wider communities. In 2022 alone, 4,710 people were injured or killed by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) across 49 states. The vast majority of landmine victims, around 85 percent in 2022, are civilian non-combatants and roughly half of those injured were children*.
Landmine victims overwhelmingly come from economically marginalised communities impacted by or recovering from the effects of armed conflict. The continued presence of landmines and other unexploded ordinances act as a barrier to normal and social economic life in the areas where they have been planted and complicate rebuilding efforts in former conflict zones.
Not only do they threaten the lives and prosperity of those who live near them, these weapons also serve as an enduring danger to future generations for as long as they remain uncleared. Put simply, a war isn’t over until the threat of landmines has been eradicated.
It is for this reason that we believe that more needs to be done to hold landmine manufacturers and the state actors that fund them accountable for the long-term threat that their weapons pose to human life. At present, there is an absence of an international framework that would compel those whose production and use of landmines have caused death or injury to pay compensation to their victims.
This perpetuates two major injustices: victims and their families are left to struggle with the cost of rebuilding shattered lives, with no hope of redress, and state actors can effectively lay landmines with impunity. The principle of ‘polluter pays’ must therefore be enforced as an added disincentive to indiscriminate, industrial-scale landmine deployment. The Campaign for Landmine Justice will battle until this goal is achieved.
*Source: Landmine Monitor 2023 report by International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
WHO WE ARE
We are an international group of landmine experts, lawyers and academics, brought together by the Geneva-based Universal Rights Group NGO for the purpose of representing those whose lives have been devastated by the use of mines and other explosive remnants of war.
Marc Limon
Chair
Marc Limon is Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group (URG), a think tank focused on international human rights policy, with offices in Geneva, New York, Nairobi and Bogotá.
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Yvette Stevens
Vice-Chair
Yvette Stevens is the former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations Office in Geneva. She has served many roles across various UN bodies …
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Murray McCullough OBE
Advisory Board
Murray McCullough is a former British Army Officer. After leaving the armed forces he joined the Royal Hong Kong Police for five years dealing with illegal immigration from China and …
Read More
Rhys Davies
Advisory Board
Rhys Davies is a leading international criminal law and human rights law barrister. Rhys has a wealth of experience of in-country legal advice and assistance, most recently in the …
Read More
Ben Keith
Advisory Board
Ben Keith is a leading specialist barrister in international law, extradition, immigration and human rights. He has extensive experience of appellate proceedings and applications …
Read More
Dr. Nidal Salim
Advisory Board
Nidal Salim is the founder and Director General of the Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health [GIWEH], a Swiss NGO that has been working with the UN Economic and …
Read More
WHO WE ARE
We are an international group of landmine experts, lawyers and academics, brought together by the Geneva-based Universal Rights Group NGO for the purpose of representing those whose lives have been devastated by the use of mines and other explosive remnants of war.
Marc Limon
Chair
Marc Limon is Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group (URG), a think tank focused on international human rights policy, with offices in Geneva, New York, Nairobi and Bogotá.
Read More
Yvette Stevens
Vice-Chair
Yvette Stevens is the former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations Office in Geneva. She has served many roles across various UN bodies …
Read More
Murray McCullough OBE
Advisory Board
Murray McCullough is a former British Army Officer. After leaving the armed forces he joined the Royal Hong Kong Police for five years dealing with illegal immigration from China and …
Read More
Rhys Davies
Advisory Board
Rhys Davies is a leading international criminal law and human rights law barrister. Rhys has a wealth of experience of in-country legal advice and assistance, most recently in the …
Read More
Ben Keith
Advisory Board
Ben Keith is a leading specialist barrister in international law, extradition, immigration and human rights. He has extensive experience of appellate proceedings and applications …
Read More
Dr. Nidal Salim
Advisory Board
Nidal Salim is the founder and Director General of the Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health [GIWEH], a Swiss NGO that has been working with the UN Economic and …
Read More
