Policy

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 believes that existing legislation is sufficient to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically.

Panama often attends meetings of the treaty, most recently the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018 and the intersessional meetings of the treaty in Geneva in May 2019. Panama did not provide a statement at either meeting. Panama did not attend the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014.

Panama submitted its third Article 7 report in 2009 and its fourth Article 7 report in 2019.

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

Production, transfer, stockpile, and retention

Panama has never used, produced, exported, or imported antipersonnel mines, including for training purposes.

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]