Human Rights Watch: Obama's rejection of Landmine Treaty Reprehensible [View All]

[Karmadillo]

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/11/25/us-obama-rejection-mine-ban-treaty-reprehensible

(Washington, DC) - The Obama administration's decision to continue the Bush administration's policy of refusing to join the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines is a reprehensible rejection of the most successful disarmament and humanitarian treaty of the past decade, Human Rights Watch said today.

"President Obama's decision to cling to antipersonnel mines keeps the US on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity," said Steve Goose, Arms Division director at Human Rights Watch. "This decision lacks vision, compassion, and basic common sense, and contradicts the Obama administration's professed emphasis on multilateralism, disarmament, and humanitarian affairs," said Goose.

The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has been endorsed by 158 countries, including nearly all of the US military allies. Every other member of NATO has endorsed the treaty, as has every other country in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba. The international stigma against the weapon has become so strong that in recent years the only government laying significant numbers of new landmines has been the abusive military government in Burma. Production of the weapon has dwindled to a few states, and virtually no government still exports antipersonnel mines.

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Human Rights Watch is one of the founders of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, in large part for its role in bringing about the Mine Ban Treaty.

"It is painful that President Obama has chosen to reject the Mine Ban Treaty just weeks before he joins the ranks of Nobel peace laureates, including the ICBL," said Goose.