Luxembourg

Mine Ban Policy

Last updated: 18 December 2019

Policy

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 4 December 1997 and ratified it on 14 June 1999, becoming a State Party on 1 December 1999. Legislation to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically entered into force in December 1999.

Luxembourg has attended most meetings of the treaty, most recently the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in December 2018, but it did not provide a statement. Luxembourg also attended the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. Luxembourg did not attend the intersessional meetings in Geneva in May 2019.

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

Production, use, transfer, and stockpiling

Luxembourg has not produced or exported antipersonnel mines, but previously imported mines from Belgium and the United States.[1] Export of antipersonnel mines was banned in April 1997.[2]

Luxembourg finished destruction of its stockpile of 9,600 antipersonnel mines in August 1997. It initially retained 988 mines for training purposes, reducing this number to 599 by 1 January 2011.[3] In May 2011, Luxembourg destroyed all these mines, and currently does not retain any for training.[4]



[1] Telephone interview with Lt. Col. Ries, Deputy Chief of Staff, 22 March 1999.

[2] A ministerial regulation of 7 April 1997 added antipersonnel mines to the items included in the Grand Ducal regulation of 31 October 1995 regulating the import, export and transit of arms, ammunition and military-related material and technology.

[3] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form D, 2010.

[4] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form B, 2011.