Mine ban policy overview

Policy

Mongolia has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty and did not fulfill its objective, announced in 2004, of joining the treaty in 2008 through a step-by-step approach.[1]

Mongolia did not attend the Twelfth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in December 2012 or the intersessional meetings in May 2013. In June 2011, Mongolia informed States Parties that it “continues to pursue a step-by-step (or phased) policy towards accession to the Convention due to a range of security and economic concerns.”[2] However, it did not mention the interagency action plan to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty that it had announced at the Tenth Meeting of States Parties and at the Second Review Conference.[3] In 2010, Mongolia informed States Parties that it would join the treaty “in the near future.”[4] Earlier, in October 2010, during the UN General Assembly (UNGA) debate, Mongolia stated that “Just a few days ago the Prime Minister re-affirmed Mongolia’s commitment to accede to the Convention.”[5]

Mongolia has repeatedly stated that it has limited resources to implement the treaty, especially with respect to stockpile destruction, and it encouraged “cooperation, assistance and support” from other countries and international organizations.[6] In the past, representatives from Mongolia have expressed concern about whether Mongolia will receive international assistance for both stockpile destruction and clearance of areas contaminated with unexploded ordnance, especially Soviet-era firing ranges.[7]

Mongolia is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), but not its Amended Protocol II on landmines or Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

Use, stockpiling, production, and transfer

Mongolia submitted a voluntary Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report in August 2007.[8] The report revealed a stockpile of 206,417 antipersonnel mines, inherited from the Soviet Union.[9] At the government’s invitation, in July 2009 technical experts from the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) investigated the condition of Mongolia’s mine stocks. At the Second Review Conference, Mongolia reported that it had destroyed 100 antipersonnel mines in the previous year and that it would destroy another 100 in the following year to help identify a destruction technology that is both environmentally safe and cost effective.[10]

In December 2010, Mongolia stated that it had a stockpile of 206,317 antipersonnel mines (100 mines fewer than the number reported in August 2007) and would destroy another 380 mines in 2011 to demonstrate “our step-by-step approach to join the Convention.”[11] However, in June 2011 Mongolia reported that it had 206,417 antipersonnel mines and that 110 had been destroyed to “define an appropriate mine destruction technique friendly to the environment.”[12] A representative of the Ministry of Defense could not provide any information on the method of destruction used, but he did confirm that Mongolia would not necessarily need to retain any live mines for training purposes since it currently uses inert mines in its training programs.[13]

In the past, Mongolia has often stated that it has never used antipersonnel mines on its territory.[14] In December 2010, Mongolia reaffirmed that it will not “transfer, acquire or place landmines.”[15]

Policy

Mongolia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Mongolia had not publicly articulated its views on the ban convention until September 2013, when its deputy permanent representative to the UN in Geneva attended the convention’s Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia as an observer and made a statement. Mongolia informed States Parties that it “attaches a particular importance to the Convention on Cluster Munitions banning one [of] the most inhumane weapons of today, and supports the international efforts towards its universalization. We believe that the only guarantee against the risk of the use and proliferation of these weapons is their total elimination.”[1]

Later that month, Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia expressed regret at a high-level meeting on nuclear disarmament that the Conference on Disarmament “has not been able to live up to its expectation” and said “that is why international practice has demonstrated the indispensable role of coalitions of states and of NGOs, when the disarmament machinery fails, as exemplified by the successful conclusion of [the] landmines convention in 1997 and of the cluster munitions convention in 2008.”[2]

Mongolia did not participate in the 2007–2008 Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It first attended a meeting related to the convention in November 2009, when it participated in a regional workshop on cluster munitions in Bali, Indonesia. Mongolia attended the convention’s First Meeting of States Parties in Vientiane, Lao PDR in November 2010 as an observer, but did not make a statement. It did not attend any meetings again until September 2013.

Mongolia has voted in favor of recent UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions condemning Syria’s cluster munition use, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[3]

Mongolia is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty. Mongolia is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Mongolia is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but it is thought to have a stockpile. Jane’s Information Group reports that KMGU dispensers that deliver submunitions are in service with the country’s air force.[4] Mongolia also possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface launchers, but it is not known if these include rockets with submunition payloads.[5] It acquired 130 Grad launchers from the Soviet Union in 1975–1978.[6]