Albania

Mine Ban Policy

Last updated: 17 December 2012

Policy

The Republic of Albania signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 8 September 1998 and ratified it on 29 February 2000, becoming a State Party on 1 August 2000. It enacted national implementation legislation in 2006, which includes penal sanctions.[1] Albania submitted its 13th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report in April 2012.[2]

Albania attended the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in November-December 2011, where it was represented by Deputy Minister of Defense, Dr. Arian Starova, and served as a vice-president of the meeting. Ambassador Gazmund Turdio opened the meeting on behalf of Albania as outgoing president of the Tenth Meeting of States Parties, held in Geneva in November–December 2010. During the meeting Albania made a number of statements, including on victim assistance, clearance, universalization, the International Support Unit, and cooperation and assistance. Ambassador Turdio reflected on his work as president in 2011 on universalization, including convening a workshop in Tirana for universalization partners, holding bilateral meetings with representatives of states not party in Geneva, promoting the convention at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and efforts to engage with Morocco in-country.[3] He noted that he had made statements to the media expressing deep concern over instances of new use of antipersonnel mines and called on all States Parties to condemn any future violations of the treaty’s norms.[4]

Albania also attended the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in May 2012, where it gave an update on its progress on victim assistance.

Albania is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war, but has never submitted an Article 13 report for Amended Protocol II.

Production, transfer, stockpiling, and retention

Production of antipersonnel mines in Albania was suspended in 1990 and officially ceased in 1991.[5] Albania may have been a minor exporter of antipersonnel mines in the past. The last use of antipersonnel mines in Albania occurred in 1998 and 1999 in the northeast of the country during the Kosovo crisis.

Albania completed the destruction of its stockpile of 1,683,860 antipersonnel mines on 4 April 2002, more than two years before its treaty deadline.[6] In its initial Article 7 report, Albania stated that “there are no justifiable reasons for the retention of APM [antipersonnel mines] for training or any other purpose” and has therefore not retained mines since becoming a State Party.[7]

 



[1] Law No.9515 “The Implementation of the Convention on the Ban of Use, Storage, Production and Transfer of the Anti-Personnel Mines and their Destruction,” 2006. See Landmine Monitor Report 2006, p. 126, for more details on the law and on previous laws giving legal force to the treaty in Albania.

[2] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for period 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011).

[3] Statement by Amb. Gazmend Turdio, Mine Ban Treaty Eleventh Meeting of States Parties, Phnom Penh, 1 December 2011.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Two production plants were converted to facilities for ammunition demilitarization by 2002. For more details on past production, trade, stockpiling and use, see Landmine Monitor Report 2004, pp. 99–101.

[6] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form F, 30 April 2003.

[7] Ibid., Form D, 3 April 2002.