[4] Recognizing that States can move effectively towards the ultimate goal of the eventual elimination of anti-personnel land-mines as viable and humane alternatives are developed.

Encourages further international efforts to seek solutions to the problems caused by anti-personnel-mines, with a view to their eventual elimination [operative paragraph 6].

One example was the well-intended attempt made by Canada to win the support of Countries opposed to a total ban – in particular the US – by proposing a new approach: To replace the Draft Convention by a new text, composed of a "Chapeau-Convention", containing generalities only, and four annexed protocols, each one dealing with one of the main prohibitions: production, stockpiling, transfer and use of anti-personnel mines.

This proposal did however not materialise as the US rebuffed the idea, believing that they could steer the negotiations into the Conference on Disarmament where it would be subject to the consensus rule.

[79] Through 2015, 29 countries had cleared all known mined areas from their territory: Albania, Bhutan, Bulgaria, Burundi, Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Denmark, Djibouti, France, Gambia, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Jordan, Malawi, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Rwanda, Suriname, Swaziland, Tunisia, Uganda, and Venezuela.

Pope Francis has described the Ottawa Process as an example of where the organisations of "civil society" are "capable of creating effective dynamics that the United Nations cannot".

[94] Substantively, critics view the treaty as naive and idealistic, in attempting to erase the reality of security threats that lead armies and defense forces to rely on landmines for protection against invasion and terror attacks.

As a result, ratification has been far from universal, and many of the states that do not currently intend to ratify the treaty possess large stockpiles of anti-personnel mines.

Cluster bombs, for example, introduce the same problem as mines: unexploded bomblets can remain a hazard for civilians long after a conflict has ended.

Opponents point out that the Ottawa Convention places no restriction whatsoever on anti-vehicle mines which kill civilians on tractors, on school buses, etc.

The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention.

This was however met with reluctance by the Estonian Ministry of Defence, whose spokesman Thomas Mell claimed that there's no indication that Estonia would need to reintroduce anti-personnel mines,[102] and the bill was voted down by the parliament.

[105][106] The stance is supported by the Finnish Ministry of Defence report from 2003, which sees landmines as an effective weapon against a mechanised invasion force.

[108] Also, the Minister of Defence Jussi Niinistö (Blue Reform; formerly Finns Party prior to its split) has been supporting withdrawal from the treaty, saying that he "wants to rip it in half".

[109] Since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the debate sparked up again in Finland, when the chairmans of the National Coalition Party Petteri Orpo and Finns Party Riikka Purra viewed joining the treaty as a mistake in a panel of the Finnish national broadcaster Yle on 1 March 2022, wanting to resign from the treaty.

[111] The President of Finland Sauli Niinistö also commented that "there would be use for anti-personnel mines", and former Chief of Defence Gustav Hägglund considered joining the treaty "a grave mistake".

[112] In the same continuum, another citizens' initiative to resign from the treaty,[113] left on 24 February 2022, gathered the required 50,000 signatures by 6 March 2022, and proceeded to the Parliament.

[115] Debate in Finland sparked again after the new Chief of Defence Janne Jaakkola pushed for reconsideration of the policy on anti-personnel landmines on 23 November 2024, based on the course of events of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In December 2024, based on the military lessons from the Russian war against Ukraine, the outgoing Lithuanian Minister of National Defence initiated the debate on the withdrawal from the Ottawa Treaty.

[122] The Lithuanian government reasoned that the anti-personnel mines are an important capability and that Russia is neither the party of the convention nor it would hesitate to use such munitions in a conflict with NATO.

Human Rights Watch claims in its report that as of 18 November 2014, over 2,000 civilians were still in the Tel Shair corridor section of the mine belt because Turkey had been refusing entry for cars or livestock, and the refugees did not want to leave behind their belongings.

These meetings provide a forum to report on what has been accomplished, indicate where additional work is needed and seek any assistance they may require.

[164] Since the first UNGA resolution supporting the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997, the number of states voting in favor has ranged from a low of 139 in 1999 to a high of 165 in 2010.

Because of this unparalleled involvement of the global public, and their success in lobbying for this initiative, university political science and law departments frequently study the socio-historical initiatives that led to the Ottawa process, arguing it is a leading modern example of the power of peaceful democratic expression and a method for mobilization on disarmament issues or more broadly.

The organization the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its founding coordinator, Jody Williams, were instrumental in the passage of the Ottawa Treaty, and for these efforts they jointly received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

[168] Available sources such as the study on the Ottawa Treaty made by Stuart Maslen[169] and an article published by Werner Ehrlich in 1996[170] indicate that the key figure in the making of the Ottawa Treaty was the Austrian diplomat Werner Ehrlich, head of the Disarmament Unit at the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1995/96: He initiated the process by making the first draft of the future Treaty in April 1996 and succeeded to get this project and the proposed unorthodox procedure – to negotiate this Convention outside the Conference on Disarmament (CD) – adopted by the Ottawa Conference in October 1996 – in spite of nearly universal opposition.

[172] He succeeded finally against all odds – due in particular to the inspired and timely support of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lloyd Axworthy – to get his project indorsed by the Conference: Austria was tasked to draft the text for the negotiations which were to be held – as proposed – in a free standing negotiating process, a procedure later called the "Ottawa Process".

His third and final draft before leaving disarmament at the end of 1996 to become Austria's Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Iran[173] was known as the "First Austrian Draft"[173] and served as the basis for the following negotiations leading to the adoption of the Mine Ban Treaty in December 1997 Mines Action Canada grew out of the efforts of Canadian non-governmental agencies concerned about the rapidly spreading impact of landmines and cluster munitions.

This call to action led directly to the signing of the "Convention on the Prohibition on the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction" commonly known as the 'mine ban treaty' one year later in December 1997.

Mines Action Canada was hosted by Physicians for Global Survival, chaired by Valerie Warmington and coordinated by Celina Tuttle from the coalition's inception until after the treaty was signed.