On June 21, 2022, the United States adopted a new Anti-Personnel Landmine (APL) Policy.Footnote ¹ Coming nearly on the eighth anniversary of the Obama administration's APL policy announcement on June 27, 2014,Footnote ² and almost two and a half years after the Trump administration's reversal of that policy on January 31, 2020,Footnote ³ this is the fifth change in U.S. policy in as many administrations, dating back to the Clinton presidency. The Biden administration's decision returns the United States to greater consistency with the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (the Ottawa Convention), which is similar to the Obama and Clinton-era approaches.Footnote ⁴ The new policy also renews a commitment to work toward acceding to the Ottawa Convention, which currently has 164 parties.Footnote ⁵ In addition to the United States, other non-parties to the Convention include China, India, Iran, Russia, and the Koreas. Until the United States accedes to the Ottawa Convention, its international obligations regarding APL stem from the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended on May 3, 1996 (Amended Protocol II) and customary international law.Footnote ⁶

As described previously in these pages, the drafting of what would become the Ottawa Convention was initially supported and promoted by the United States.Footnote ⁷ President Clinton announced in May 1996 “that the United States would aggressively pursue a worldwide agreement to ban use, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel landmines” and that policy was codified in a June 1996 Presidential Policy Directive, and pushed forward in the UN General Assembly in a November draft resolution, which was adopted that December, and also at the January 1997 Conference on Disarmament.Footnote ⁸ Yet the Clinton administration declined to sign the Convention after it was concluded in September 1997 due to its unwillingness to abandon APLs in the Korean Peninsula, the use of which there would violate the agreement, which did not permit reservations.Footnote ⁹

President Clinton did, however, commit to accede to the Convention by 2006, provided an alternative weapon could be designed in the interim.Footnote ¹⁰ He also “undertook not to use, and to place in inactive stockpile status with intent to demilitarize by the end of 1999, all non-self-destructing APL [‘persistent landmines’] not needed to (a) train personnel engaged in demining and countermining operations, or (b) defend the United States and its allies from armed aggression across the Korean Demilitarized Zone.”Footnote ¹¹ However, he “reserve[d] the option to use self-destructing/self-deactivating [‘non-persistent’] APL,” subject to U.S. obligations under international law.Footnote ¹² In 2004, the Bush administration withdrew President Clinton's pledge to accede to the Convention.Footnote ¹³ It promised to “eliminate persistent landmines of all types [i.e., anti-personnel and anti-vehicle] from [the U.S.] arsenal,” using only non-persistent landmines after 2010 (including potentially outside of the Korean Peninsula).Footnote ¹⁴

In turn, the Obama administration, after five years of review, adopted a policy that informally aligned the United States with the Convention's objectives, while still reserving the right to stockpile and use APL “for the defense of the Republic of Korea.”Footnote ¹⁵ The Obama administration also committed not to “produce or otherwise acquire any anti-personnel munitions that are not compliant with the Ottawa Convention.”Footnote ¹⁶ The Trump administration returned to the approach of the Bush administration, focusing again on the distinction between persistent and non-persistent landmines, both APL and anti-vehicle landmines. Thus, the administration promised “not to employ persistent landmines” but retained “the [Defense] Department's ability to employ non-persistent landmines [without] any expressed geographic limitations.”Footnote ¹⁷ A Pentagon official argued that landmines “remain a vital tool in conventional warfare that the United States military cannot responsibly forgo, particularly when faced with substantial and potentially overwhelming enemy forces in the early stages of combat.”Footnote ¹⁸

President Biden returned the United States to an APL policy that “align[s] . . . with key provisions” of the Ottawa Convention.Footnote ¹⁹ Employing (without explicitly saying so) the words of Article 1 of the Convention, the White House announced that the United States will:

• • Not develop, produce, or acquire APL;

• • Not export or transfer of APL, except when necessary for activities related to mine detection or removal, and for the purpose of destruction;

• • Not use APL outside of the Korean Peninsula;

• • Not assist, encourage, or induce anyone, outside of the context of the Korean Peninsula, to engage in any activity that would be prohibited by the Ottawa Convention; and

• • Undertake to destroy all APL stockpiles not required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.

• • Additionally, the United States will undertake diligent efforts to pursue materiel and operational solutions to assist in becoming compliant with and ultimately acceding to the Ottawa Convention, while ensuring our ability to respond to contingencies and meet our alliance commitments.Footnote ²⁰

As with the Clinton and Obama policies, the Biden policy focused exclusively on APL and reserved the use of APL in the Korean Peninsula. The United States currently has a stockpile of approximately three million APLs.Footnote ²¹ According to Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Stanley L. Brown, the “United States last used anti-personnel landmines in 1991 during the Gulf War. There was one single incident of one munition being used in the 2002 timeframe in Afghanistan.”Footnote ²² Senator Patrick Leahy, who for decades has fought against the U.S. use of APLs, called upon the president to direct the “Department of Defense . . . to move expeditiously in fully implementing and institutionalizing the policy.”Footnote ²³

President Biden's announcement of the new APL policy emphasized its multilateralist, legal, and humanitarian dimensions. While noting that the policy changes “complement longstanding U.S. leadership in the clearance of landmines and other explosive remnants of war,” the White House stressed that they also “reflect the President's belief that these weapons have disproportionate impact on civilians, including children, long after fighting has stopped, and that we need to curtail the use of APL worldwide.”Footnote ²⁴ The Fact Sheet that was issued by the White House made clear that the United States “is joining the vast majority of countries around the world in committing to limit the use of anti-personnel landmines.”Footnote ²⁵ And it went on to underscore that that the new policy “represents a further step to advance the humanitarian aims of the Ottawa Convention, and to bring U.S. practice in closer alignment with a global humanitarian movement that has had a demonstrated positive impact in reducing civilian casualties from APL.”Footnote ²⁶ Officials also emphasized the longstanding U.S. commitment to conventional weapons destruction, including landmines. Since 1993, the United States has provided over $4.2 billion in funding for such programs.Footnote ²⁷ In a statement, the European Union indicated that the change in U.S. policy “will contribute to the reinforcement of the humanitarian aims of the Ottawa Convention and to closer alignment with a global humanitarian movement that has demonstrated a positive impact in reducing civilian casualties.”Footnote ²⁸

The policy announcement came several months into the invasion of Ukraine, and U.S. officials made a point of contrasting its position with the Russian use of landmines in Ukraine.Footnote ²⁹ National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson underscored that the “world has once again witnessed the devastating impact that anti-personnel landmines can have in the context of Russia's brutal and unprovoked war in Ukraine.”Footnote ³⁰ In August, the State Department announced that the United States would provide $89 million in funding for demining assistance in Ukraine.Footnote ³¹