Panama

Mine Ban Policy

Last updated: 28 October 2011

The Republic of Panama signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified it on 7 October 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 April 1999. Panama has never used, produced, exported, or imported antipersonnel mines, including for training purposes. Panama believes that existing legislation is sufficient to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically. Panama submitted its third Article 7 report in 2009, but has not submitted subsequent annual reports.

Panama attended the Tenth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in November–December 2010 in Geneva, but did not attend the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in June 2011.

Panama is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. 

Panama has a problem with unexploded ordnance as a result of United States military exercises and weapons testing on military ranges in the Canal Zone during the three decades prior to 1999. Colombian rebels have also planted mines in Darien province, where two Panamanian border police were wounded in a mine blast in 2010. The number of devices found is unknown.[1]

 



[1] Sean Mattson, “Colombian rebels planting landmines in Panama: government,” Reuters, 2 July 2010.