Policy

The Republic of Korea (South Korea) has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

In November 2019, South Korea stated that it “supports the objectives and purposes of the Ottawa Convention,” but that, “due to the security situation on the Korean peninsula, we are currently not a party to the convention.”[1] However, in another statement in October 2017, South Korea for the first time noted, “The Republic of Korea is fully committed to the objectives and purposes of this convention.”[2]

On 12 December 2019, South Korea abstained from voting on the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 74/61, which calls for the universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty. South Korea has also abstained in previous years. South Korea has stated consistently that the security situation on the Korean Peninsula prohibits it from acceding to the treaty.[3]

In July 2020, an observer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs attended the virtual intersessional meetings. In May 2019, South Korea attended the intersessional meetings where it reiterated that it is “fully committed to the objectives and purposes” of the convention, but cannot accede due to the “unique security situation on the Korean Peninsula.”[4] Previously, South Korea had never sent an observer delegation to a meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty, and also did not attend the convention’s Fourth Review Conference in Oslo in November 2019.

On 24 September 2019, South Korean President Moon Jae-in requested international cooperation on mine clearance in the demilitarized zone (DMZ).[5] An April 2018 inter-Korean summit pledged to recommence road and rail connections in the east of the Korean peninsula.[6] Mine clearance to facilitate these connections halted in 2002.[7] In September 2018, the South Korean army called for the establishment of an agency dedicated to removing border landmines as part of efforts to implement the April inter-Korean summit agreement.[8] At the September 2018 inter-Korean summit, leaders from both sides agreed to begin removal of landmines from a jointly controlled village on the DMZ.[9] In October 2019, the South Korean Ministry of Defense announced its intention to remove all mines from military installations south of the DMZ by 2021 and began the clearance task in April 2020.[10]

In November 2019, South Korea’s international development agency, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), convened a meeting of representatives of mine clearance efforts that KOICA financially supports in Southeast Asia in order to determine what lessons could be learned from those programs to inform mine clearance in South Korea.[11]

In November 2018, the Korean Campaign to Ban Landmines/Peace Sharing Association (KCBL/PSA) organized an International Symposium on the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for Mine Clearance in the DMZ in cooperation with and on the campus of Yonsei University in Seoul. The symposium was launched in support of the demining initiative undertaken in the DMZ by North and South Korea, and brought together representatives of several government departments and the military with international organizations involved in mine clearance and victim assistance.[12] Subsequently, in January 2019, the United Nations Command (UNC) organized a first seminar on mine action in the DMZ.[13]

In September 2019, KCBL/PSA, at the request of the South Korean Ministry of Defense, began the translation of the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) into Korean for use by the South Korean armed forces. This translation was completed and delivered in December 2019, and is now being used by the Ministry of Defense to prepare Korean Mine Action Standards.[14] Also in September 2019, the KCBL/PSA, in cooperation with the provincial government of Gyeoggi province, launched a survey of mine/unexploded ordinance (UXO) civilian victims and a non-technical survey of the province.[15] In late 2015, the KCBL/PSA published a report entitled “Civilian Mine Victims in Gangwon Province, Korea.” The report provided the most comprehensive picture of the status of the landmine problem in one of the two provinces that border the DMZ. The report provides the only public accounting of mined areas in the country, a listing of the casualties in Gangwon province since 2000, and data regarding mined areas that have been scheduled for removal by the Ministry of National Defense.[16] During 2019, KCBL/PSA undertook a survey of the other province bordering the DMZ, Gyeoggi province, which reported 291 antipersonnel mine victims and 346 victims of other UXO.[17]

After a 15-year struggle by the KCBL/PSA, the National Assembly passed the Special Act on Landmine Victim Assistance in September 2014. The Special Act stipulates that those who fall victim to landmines and the family members of those killed by the weapon and designated as their heirs will receive compensation. The KCBL coordinator is Chairperson for the Sub-committee of the Mine Victim Support Deliberation Committee at the Ministry of Defense in Seoul.

It is unknown what percentage of mines in the areas to be cleared were laid by United States (US) forces when the area was under US control. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) does not allow the South Korea to make any claims of the US forces, including records of where US forces may have laid mines. The issue of US forces is extremely sensitive in South Korea, where the country currently pays for 100% of the US military presence.

Previously, in April 2011, Prince Mired Raad Al Hussein, the Special Envoy on Universalization for the Mine Ban Treaty, visited South Korea where he met with the Deputy Minister for Policy of the Ministry of National Defense, the Deputy Minister of Multilateral and Global Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Chief of the High Court of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces to explore ways that South Korea may wish to engage in the work of the treaty.[18]

In September 2014, South Korea’s key military ally, the US, announced a new policy committing not to use antipersonnel landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula. Additionally, then-US President Barack Obama commented, “We’re going to continue to work to find ways that would allow us to ultimately comply fully and accede to the Ottawa Convention.” In September 2017, during a Memorial Day ceremony, South Korean President Moon Jae-in stated that he intended to take the right of Wartime Operation Control away from the US Army as soon as possible. When this occurs, there will no longer be any obstacle from South Korea for the US to join the Mine Ban Treaty.[19] However, in January 2020, the US Department of Defense announced a new policy permitting planning for, and use of, antipersonnel mines in conflicts, either within or outside of the Korean Peninsula.[20]

South Korea is not a party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines.[21]

Use

In August 2019, South Korea informed the ICBL that it has not emplaced any new mined areas since 2000.[22] South Korea maintains that it has not used mines in many years. In September 2018, a Ministry of National Defense official stated that no new mines were placed, or replaced, in calendar year 2017 or until August 2018.[23] In May 2017, South Korean authorities stated that the country did not place, or replace, any antipersonnel mines during calendar years 2015 and 2016.[24]

South Korea alleged that in August 2015, two South Korean soldiers on patrol on the South Korean side of the DMZ at Yeonchon, in Gyeonggi province, were injured by newly laid antipersonnel mines. Initial news reports quoting South Korean military sources stated that the mines were not of North Korean origin.[25] The type of mine was later stated by the South Korean military to be North Korean wooden box mines (PMD-6 type).[26]

North Korea issued a denial of use, stating it only used mines in self-defense.[27] At a press conference in New York on 21 August 2015, the North Korean ambassador to the UN asserted that the South Korean military had identified the mine as an M14 on 4 August and then changed it to a North Korean box mine on 10 August for political purposes.[28]

The US-led UN Command deployed a Special Investigation Team from the Military Armistice Commission to examine the area after the incident. The team included military officers of four countries and was observed by Swiss and Swedish members of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. The investigation concluded “that the North Korean People’s Army violated paragraphs 6, 7 and 8 of the Armistice Agreement by emplacing wooden box land mines along a known Republic of Korea patrol route in the southern half of the Demilitarized Zone, injuring two Republic of Korea soldiers. Additionally, the investigation determined that the devices were recently emplaced, and ruled out the possibility that these were legacy landmines which had drifted from their original placements due to rain or shifting soil.”[29] North Korean wooden box antipersonnel mines are regularly reported to float into South Korean territory, including in 2017.[30]

Production and Transfer

In August 2019, South Korea informed the ICBL that it had not produced any antipersonnel landmines in the previous five years.[31] Until South Korea renounces future mine production, it will remain listed by the Monitor as a producer of antipersonnel mines.

In May 2017, South Korea responded to an ICBL information request that it had not produced any antipersonnel mines without a self-destruction mechanism during 2016.[32] In 2011, a private South Korean company, Hanwha Corporation, produced 4,000 KM74 antipersonnel mines.[33] In 2007, the Hanwha Corporation produced about 10,000 self-destructing antipersonnel mines, as well as an unknown number of Claymore directional fragmentation mines.[34]

In both 2011 and 2012, Foreign Ministry officials stated that the government commissioned the development of remotely-controlled mines, which will replace antipersonnel mines, and that the newly developed mines will meet the requirements set out in Amended Protocol II of the CCW.[35]

South Korea has stated on several occasions that it has “faithfully enforced an indefinite extension of the moratorium on the export of [antipersonnel] mines since 1997.”[36]

Stockpiling

The precise size and composition of South Korea’s antipersonnel mine stockpile is not publicly known.[37] However, South Korea said in 2006 and 2008 that its stockpile consisted of 407,800 antipersonnel mines.[38] In the past, the government stated that it held a stockpile of about two million antipersonnel mines.[39]

In September 2018, in response to a request for information, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense stated that the army had destroyed 186 tons of non-usable antipersonnel landmines that had been in storage between 1 January 2017 and 1 August 2018.[40] In May 2017, in response to a request for information, the South Korean government wrote that it had destroyed 19,662 M16 and 1,647 M14 mines during calendar years 2015 and 2016.[41] South Korea previously reported in 2011 that it had destroyed 18,464 antipersonnel mines (5,132 M14, 12,086 M16, and 1,246 M18) in the ammunition units where they were stored during 2010. The date(s) of the destruction and reason for this action were not specified.[42]

The US military keeps a substantial number of remotely-delivered, self-destructing antipersonnel mines in South Korea. In 2005, the South Korean government reported that the US held 40,000 GATOR, 10,000 Volcano, and an unknown number of MOPMS mines.[43]

For many years, the US military also stockpiled about 1.1 million M14 and M16 non-self-destructing antipersonnel mines for use in any future war in Korea, with about half of the total kept in South Korea and half in the continental US.[44] Most of the US-owned mines located in South Korea have been part of the more extensive War Reserve Stocks for Allies, Korea (WRSA-K). On 30 December 2005, the US enacted a law authorizing the sale of items in the WRSA-K to South Korea during a three-year period, after which the WRSA-K program would be terminated, which occurred at the end of 2008.[45] In June 2009, the South Korean government told the Monitor, “AP [antipersonnel] mines were not included in the list of items for sale or transfer in the WRSA-K negotiations, and therefore, no AP-mines were bought or obtained.”[46] In June 2011, a Foreign Ministry official stated that South Korea safeguards a stockpile of antipersonnel mines that belongs to the US military on its territory as part of the WRSA-K program. These mines are planned to be gradually transferred out of South Korea.[47] In June 2012, a Foreign Ministry official stated that the antipersonnel mines are in ammunition storage within secure areas of the US Forces Korea.[48]

The law ending the program states that any items remaining in the WRSA-K at the time of termination “shall be removed, disposed of, or both by the Department of Defense.”[49] Moreover, US policy has prohibited the use of non-self-destructing antipersonnel mines in South Korea since 2010. According to documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Monitor in 2013, the WRSA-K stockpile included 480,267 M-14 antipersonnel mines and 83,319 M-16 antipersonnel mines.[50] In May 2017, South Korean authorities refused to divulge any information regarding WRSA-K stocks of antipersonnel mines.[51] The US has previously destroyed all non-self-destructing mines not dedicated for potential use on the Korean Peninsula. As of October 2015, the Monitor could not determine whether the US indeed maintained non-self-destructing antipersonnel mines in South Korea.