Germany

The Federal Republic of Germany signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 23 July 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 March 1999. Germany produced, imported, and exported mines. Production was renounced in April 1996, and a 1994 export moratorium was made permanent in 1996. Legislation to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically entered into force on 9 July 1998. In April 2012, Germany submitted its 14^th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report.

Germany destroyed its stockpile of 1.7 million antipersonnel mines in December 1997. Germany initially retained 3,000 mines for training and development purposes, which was reduced to 2,130 mines by the end of 2011.[1] On 3 March 2011, 22,716 antipersonnel mines were transferred from Turkey to a company in Germany in order to be destroyed.[2]

In 2011 and 2012, Germany served as co-chair of the Standing Committee on stockpile destruction. Germany served as co-rapporteur of the Standing Committee on Technologies for Mine Action (1999–2000) and as co-rapporteur and then co-chair of the Standing Committees on Mine Clearance (2000–2002) and General Status and Operation of the Convention (2006–2008).

Germany attended the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in November–December 2011 and the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in May 2012. At both meetings, Germany made a number of statements including on stockpile destruction and retention, the treaty’s implementation support unit, cooperation and assistance, and on its progress to clear unexploded ordnance, including antipersonnel mines, from a former military training base at Wittstock.

Germany is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.