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Country Reports
Vanuatu, Landmine Monitor Report 2004

Vanuatu

On 4 December 1997, the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vital Soksok, signed the Mine Ban Treaty on behalf of the Republic of Vanuatu, but the country remains one of just nine signatory countries that have still not ratified.

In June 2004, a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs attended intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva, marking Vanuatu’s first participation in a Mine Ban Treaty-related meeting. The official told Landmine Monitor that the ratification document is currently before the executive Council of Ministers and following approval, it will be adopted by the national parliament, when a government is formed following elections scheduled for 6 July 2004.[1] The official subsequently made a statement to the Standing Committee on the General Status and Operation of the Convention, stating the ratification should “definitely” be completed by the opening of the Review Conference in November 2004, and describing the delay as due to “the unstable nature of Vanuatu’s domestic politics that has left the country without a president or parliament.”[2]

Despite the ratification delay, Vanuatu voted in support of UN General Assembly Resolution 58/53 on 8 December 2003. It previously voted in support of the annual pro-ban resolution in 2000, but was absent during the vote in 1999, 2001, and 2002.

In March 2001, a government representative said that Vanuatu had no stockpiled antipersonnel mines.[3] The islands are not believed to be mine-affected, but there are still major dumps of military equipment and other explosive remnants of war left over from World War II. A 2003 report described the effects of this contamination as residual, with no casualties reported in recent years and few indications of detrimental effects on land use.[4]


[1] Interview with Marie-Antoinette Nirua, Head, Europe/Middle East/Africa division, Department of Foreign Affairs of Vanuatu, Geneva, 22 June 2004.
[2] Statement by Marie-Antoinette Nirua, Head, Europe/Middle East/Africa division, Department of Foreign Affairs of Vanuatu, to the Standing Committee on the General Status and Operation of the Convention, Geneva, 25 June 2004.
[3] Interview with Paul Sami, Head of Asia-Pacific Division, Department of Foreign Affairs of Vanuatu, Wellington (New Zealand), 27 March 2001.
[4] Landmine Action, Explosive remnants of war: a global survey, by John Borrie, London, June 2003; Interview with Paul Sami, Head of Asia-Pacific Division, Department of Foreign Affairs of Vanuatu, Wellington (New Zealand), 27 March 2001, p. 35.