The effectiveness of global landmine regimes

For APII, long implementation and optional deferral periods means that there are no surprises for members. Clearly defined rules of engagement for participation, including consensus decision-making and very limited accountability beyond the level of states, also builds confidence. Although within the APII implementation process there are regular experts meetings, these remain largely at a governmental level. This profile contributes to the stability of the regime. At the same time, it undermines the ability to problem-solve that more broadly-based regime participation would offer.

The limitations of regime design only become fully apparent during implementation. How regimes learn is important for their ability to overcome technical and political hurdles to fulfilling regime obligations. Yet even where learning mechanisms exist, without clustering the appropriate expertise, fostering political buy-in and supporting national capacities to address hard issues, the right lessons cannot be drawn. Measures adopted within the mine ban treaty to provide for greater clarity on national implementation processes have had limited impact because greater transparency has not led to increased accountability. Concrete measures have not been developed to address underlying challenges of political will and capacity.

The relationship between technical and political factors

The interplay of technical and political considerations is an important consideration for landmine regime effectiveness. If treaties are negotiated at a political level, implementation is strongly influenced by a combination of both political and technical factors. The mine ban treaty regime formation process was highly effective in altering the political calculus for membership. However, if states assume obligations in the international arena, they subsequently have to be implemented at home. The costs associated with these obligations in certain cases pose problems that effective regimes should be able to recognize and address. Implementation of the mine ban treaty’s stockpile destruction provisions demonstrates a contradiction. The relative lack of donor support for this activity stems from its apparently technical (rather than humanitarian) profile. At the same time, an implementation cluster lacking practitioner expertise cannot identify or address technical challenges. The technical–political split means that the regime is blind to potential humanitarian pay-offs that could be achieved through relatively small investments in stockpile destruction.

On a political level, meeting stockpile destruction targets is closely linked to regime credibility. However, implementation is considered narrowly in terms of whether mine ban treaty regime members complete destruction within the stipulated timeframe. In practice, this endeavour is highly political. For mine-affected states, in particular where national authorities do not have full control of their territory, meeting these commitments can be impossible (or at least impossible to confirm with certainty). Practical challenges may be compounded by an unwillingness to address the politically sensitive issue of how to engage with ANSAs that use or stockpile APMs. Capacity gaps are thus exacerbated by a double deficit of political will at both the national level and within the regime.

The extent to which political and technical considerations bifurcate or reinforce each other is under-estimated in relation to APII effectiveness. If the scope of the regime and the flexibility of its deferral periods reflect the political limitations of a process defined by the consensus requirement, its focus on new technologies and future use of these weapons is a reflection of the knowledge base of the designers. While there may be political attractions for developing countries to participate in the company of major powers, the regime offers few substantive rewards; restrictions offer an expensive, technically challenging solution that does not address the basic problem of mines already in the ground. Initiatives that seek to widen participation are significant as a means to foster learning. Yet if such measures do not make sense from the perspective of regime goals or members’ interests, they will have limited utility. Without such reflection it is difficult to identify the incentives for developing states to contribute meaningfully to APII.

Implementers often play a central role in designing effective treaties. Given that many challenges only become apparent after rules are agreed, the involvement of expert communities should be at least as important for regime implementation. The absence of mine action expertise or voices from mine-affected countries within APII, has produced a regime that does not address the concerns of these constituencies. Consequently, mines already in the ground, or the costs for developing countries stemming from technological re-engineering of weapon stocks, were not factored into the design process. Similarly, the focus of APII provisions on traditional military operations does not reflect experience in contemporary conflicts, in which landmines are often utilized as a weapon of fear against civilian populations.

For the mine ban treaty, there is an absence of communication and coordination between politico-diplomatic and advocacy communities active within the implementation process and the wider mine action practitioner community. This clarifies an important distinction between a true epistemic community, and an implementation process still strongly influenced by norm entrepreneurs. Emphasis on brand loyalty over cooperation in the implementation phase has adverse implications for regime effectiveness. Learning within the framework of the mine ban treaty has been stymied by a lack of mine action expertise and a consequent inability to problem-solve. These capacity gaps do not impair effectiveness in terms of fulfilling obligations, but they do reduce opportunities for the regime to evolve and adapt.

How actors combine and interact is a critical determinant for regime effectiveness. The composition of these clusters at different points represents an important regime dynamic that strongly influences the ways in which cooperation and problem-solving occur. The accepted back story to the Ottawa Process focuses on the civil society coalition and its relationship to a core group of committed states. A broad cluster of actors including states, civil society experts and mine-affected states, bring different experiences to bear on the process of regime formation. This combination of policy makers, practitioners, advocates and ‘victims’, proved decisive in winning support for the regime and undermining countervailing (predominantly technical) arguments. However, the successful self-selection dynamic was more effective in garnering support from the undecided than in providing input to treaty development. In reality, the global coalition has been driven by a tightly constructed leadership structure. Although running counter to the accepted narrative, wide participation was less crucial for the design of the treaty than for increasing political will in favour of membership. This points to entrepreneurship over structural or intellectual leadership as being the dominant force.

Norms and regime interplay

The norm bandwagon phenomenon of the Ottawa Process is a decisive factor in accounting for the broader membership of the mine ban treaty in comparison to APII. Being seen to be a concerned international actor was a key dynamic, underlined from the outset of the Ottawa Process by international support that grew rapidly subsequent to the first Ottawa conference. In contrast, while APII has not exerted a pull factor beyond a core constituency drawn predominantly from the developed world, on a political level membership has proved useful in order to demonstrate solidarity with the anti-APM norm without signing up to a ban on APMs.