Biden reverses Trump-era rule on land mines
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s administration announced Tuesday that it would restrict the use of anti-personnel land mines by the U.S. military, aligning the country’s policy more closely with an international treaty banning the deadly explosives.
The United States has not extensively deployed the mines since the Gulf War in 1991. But the announcement represents a shift from a more permissive stance under then-President Donald Trump, and it concludes a lengthy review.
Bonnie Jenkins, the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security, said the new policy fulfills “a commitment that President Biden made as a candidate,” when he described Trump’s decision as “reckless.”
Anti-personnel land mines are buried underground or scattered on the surface, and they can pose a lethal threat to civilians long after combat has ended. Russia has reportedly used the explosives during its invasion of Ukraine.
Under the new policy, the U.S. will restrict the use of these explosives outside of its efforts to help defend South Korea from a potential North Korean invasion. Although the U.S. does not have minefields deployed there, Washington has pledged support for Seoul’s defense, which includes anti-personnel mines.
The U.S. has a stockpile of 3 million anti-personnel land mines. Under the new policy, any not needed to protect South Korea will be destroyed. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a question about whether any will be discarded.
The exception regarding the Korean Peninsula leaves the U.S. short of full compliance with the Ottawa Convention, the 1997 treaty intended to eliminate such mines.
Russia is not a signatory to the treaty either, and Human Rights Watch said it has documented Moscow’s use of mines during its invasion of Ukraine.
Alicia Arango Olmos, Colombia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and a top official in the global campaign against the use of land mines, has urged Russia to stop deploying them. “Anti-personnel mines only cause victims, they don’t resolve any type of problem,” she said in April.
Her office praised the U.S. announcement on Tuesday.
U.S. officials said that the Pentagon was working on alternatives to land mines on the Korean peninsula, but did not detail what those might be.