Treaties are voluntary agreements in which states consent to follow a given set of rules. Once signed and ratified, treaties commit states to specific obligations. They are neither ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment accords nor are they directly forced on any country. How then to accept that five countries have announced that they will withdraw from the 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Treaty which forbids the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines? Russia’s 2002 invasion of Ukraine has certainly changed the geopolitical context that existed when the Mine Ban Treaty was signed. But a country should not make a commitment only when the situation is favorable to that country.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland have announced that they are opting out of the Ottawa Treaty. All five countries border either Russia or Belarus. (Ukrainian President Zelensky has vowed to leave the Treaty as well.) The use of anti-personnel landmines can be seen as a defensive military action against Russia. Norway, however, which has a 121 mile land border with Russia, remains committed to its anti-mine obligations.
The withdrawals represent a serious weakening of disarmament treaties that have humanitarian objectives as well as respect for international law. The five-country withdrawals could be setting a precedent that could see countries withdraw from other treaties such as those banning biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons as well as withdrawals from international institutions.
The Uniqueness of the ICBL
The withdrawals are a considerable reversal for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), a loose coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that was awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize along with its founding coordinator Jody Williams.
The campaign was an unusual movement. (Disclaimer: My wife, Elisabeth Decrey Warner, was part of that movement.) While treaties are formally signed by states, the initiative behind the ICBL came from non-state organizations. “When the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) was formally launched in October of 1992,” Jody Williams wrote, “few imagined that the grassroots movement would capture the public imagination and build political pressure to such a degree that, within five years, the international community would come together to negotiate a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines,” she stated. “But the effort, which has been called utopian by most governments and militaries of the world when it was launched by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), has succeeded. For the first time in history, a conventional weapon in widespread use has been comprehensively prohibited,” she optimistically declared in 1999.
Anti-personnel landmines will no longer be “comprehensively prohibited” with the withdrawals. “We are furious with these countries,” Thomas Gabelnick, the current director of the ICBL, angrily commented.” They know full well that this will do nothing to help them against Russia,” he added.
The signing of the 1997 Ottawa Convention and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize were hailed at the time as significant disarmament moments. The Treaty came into force in 1999 when it was ratified by a sufficient number of states. 165 of 193 recognized states have now signed the Treaty. (The major unsigned are China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, and the United States.) The Treaty has led to the destruction of tens of millions of stockpiled landmines. Hundreds of thousands of square miles have been demined (13,000 in Ukraine alone) as well as a drastic reduction in the number of civilians maimed or killed by mines.
The Withdrawals Dangers
The withdrawals by the five countries could be an ominous example for withdrawals from other disarmament treaties or multilateral organizations. The withdrawals “set a terrible precedent,” an anti-personnel mine expert was quoted in the New York Times. “Once an idea gets going it picks up steam,” she said. “Where does it stop?”
The legitimate reason for leaving a treaty is force majeure, an unforeseen circumstance. As a Finnish Parliamentarian said in justifying her country’s leaving the Treaty, the war in Ukraine “changed everything.” Norway doesn’t agree. Nor does an expert at Human Rights Watch; “The deterrent factor of re-embracing anti-personnel mines isn’t worth the civilian risk, humanitarian liabilities and reputational damage, all of which extend far beyond their borders. The humanitarian impact will far outweigh any marginal military advantages,” she wrote.
As for the United States, it has recently withdrawn from bilateral treaties and several multilateral accords and organizations. President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in 1987. Under Trump 1.0 in 2019, the U.S. withdrew. That was a bilateral treaty. Multilaterally, Trump twice withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord and also withdrew from the Open Skies Treaty. The United States has withdrawn from institutions like the World Health Organization and is threatening to withdraw from the World Trade Organization. It has already left the U.N. Human Rights Council and just announced it will leave UNESCO in the near future.
Furthermore, President Trump has set in motion a review of the U.S.’s membership in intergovernmental organizations to decide whether it should withdraw or seek to reform them. Trump’s executive order of February 4, 2025, began: “The United States helped found the United Nations (UN) after World War II to prevent future global conflicts and promote international peace and security. But some of the UN’s agencies and bodies have drifted from this mission and instead act contrary to the interests of the United States while attacking our allies and propagating anti-Semitism.” That’s his subjective interpretation of recent events. There is no justification in the review’s mandate for any change in U.S. obligations based on force majeure, certainly not that the U.N. and some of its agencies “drifted from this mission and instead act contrary to the interests of the United States.”
Withdrawing from treaties or organizations has negative consequences for global stability. The announcements by the five countries that they are withdrawing from the Mine Ban Treaty is a worrisome addition to Donald Trump’s general assault on multilateralism. Pacta sunt servanda, the underlying principle of contracts and law, translates to “agreements must be kept.” It is the foundation of international law and cooperation.
The withdrawals are a bad omen. They lessen the value of Conventions and treaties. The confidence that states will respect their obligations is the international system’s fundamental support. The Ukraine war has not changed everything. The international system will collapse without the confidence that states will keep their agreements.
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