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Egypt
Mine Ban Policy
Mine ban policy overview
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Mine Ban Treaty status |
Not a State Party |
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Pro-mine ban UNGA voting record |
Abstained on Resolution 65/48 in December 2010, as in all previous years |
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Participation in Mine Ban Treaty meetings |
Attended as an observer the Tenth Meeting of States Parties in November–December 2010 |
Policy
The Arab Republic of Egypt has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. Egypt has often stated its reasons for opposing the treaty, including that antipersonnel mines are seen as a key means for securing its borders and that responsibility for clearance is not assigned in the treaty to those who laid the mines in the past.[1]
Egypt attended as an observer the Tenth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Geneva in November–December 2010, but it did not make any statements. Egypt did not attend the intersessional Standing Committee meetings for the Mine Ban Treaty in June 2011.
Egypt signed the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in 1981, but never ratified it. It attended as an observer the Twelfth Annual Conference of State Parties to CCW Amended Protocol II on landmines in November 2010.
Production, transfer, stockpiling, and use
Egypt has stated that it stopped production of antipersonnel mines in 1988 and export in 1984.[2]
At the First Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty in December 2004, Egypt’s Deputy Assistant Foreign Minister stated that, “the Egyptian government has imposed a moratorium on all export and production activities related to anti-personnel mines.”[3] This was the first time that Egypt publicly and officially announced a moratorium on production.[4] The Monitor is not aware of any official decrees or laws to implement permanent prohibitions on production or export of antipersonnel mines.
Egypt is believed to have a large stockpile of antipersonnel mines, but no details are available on the size and composition of the stockpile, as it is considered a state secret. In 2010, Egyptian security forces seized mines, among other weapons, in the Sinai Peninsula.[5]
[1] Egypt explained its abstention in voting on UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 65/48 in December 2010 as, “due to the particular nature of this instrument which was developed and concluded outside the multilateral context of the United Nations …. Egypt views this convention as lacking balance between the humanitarian consideration related to APLM [antipersonnel landmine] and their legitimate military use for border protection. Most importantly, the convention does not acknowledge the legal responsibility of States for demining APLM they themselves have laid, in particular in territories of other States, making it almost impossible for affected States to meet alone the Convention’s demining requirements….The mentioned weaknesses are only complemented by the weak international cooperation system of the Convention which remains limited in its effect and much dependent on the will of donor States. The mentioned weaknesses of Ottawa convention have kept the largest world producers and some of the world’s most heavily affected States outside its regime, making the potential for its universality questionable and reminding us all of the value of concluding arms-control and disarmament agreements in the context of United Nations and not outside its framework.” Statement of Egypt, “Explanation of Vote on Resolution on the Ottawa APLM Convention, L.8,” UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 October 2010.
[2] See, for example, Statement of Egypt, Seventh Meeting of States Parties, Mine Ban Treaty, Geneva, 22 September 2006. See also Statement of Egypt, “Explanation of Vote on Resolution on the Ottawa APLM Convention, L.8,” UNGA First Committee, New York, 27 October 2010: “Egypt acknowledges the humanitarian considerations which the Ottawa Convention attempted to embody and had actually imposed, based on the same considerations, a moratorium on its landmine production and export since the 1980s, long before the conclusion of the Ottawa Convention itself.”
[3] Statement of Egypt, First Review Conference, Mine Ban Treaty, Nairobi, 2 December 2004.
[4] Egypt told a UN assessment mission in February 2000 that it ceased export of antipersonnel mines in 1984 and ended production in 1988, and several Egyptian officials over the years also told the Monitor informally that production and trade had stopped. However, Egypt has not responded to repeated requests by the Monitor to make that position formal and public in writing. Thus, the Monitor has kept Egypt on its list of producers. Egypt reportedly produced two types of low metal content blast antipersonnel mines, several variations of bounding fragmentation mines, and a Claymore-type mine. There is no publicly available evidence that Egypt has produced or exported antipersonnel mines in recent years. See Landmine Monitor Report 2004, p. 957.
[5] “Egypt seizes Gaza-bound weapons,” Ma’an News Agency, 18 October 2010, www.maannews.net; “Egyptian police force discover four weapons caches in Sinai,” Reuters (Arabic), 29 August 2010; and “Security discover weapons caches in Sinai,” Al-Jazeera.net (Arabic), 29 August 2010.
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