Charged Affairs

By AJ Rehman | Rising Expert on Global Health | December 16, 2025 | Photo Credit: Flickr

This past summer has set a dangerous precedent for international law and its conventions as 6 European Countries [Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland] have formally withdrawn from the Ottawa Convention, formally known as the The Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines (1997) or in short, the mine ban treaty. While the global community faces dangerous implications politically, this has profound implications for human health and security. Signed by over 160 states, the Ottawa Convention bans the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. It also obligates signatories to assist mine victims and clear mined areas. However, recent political developments, namely the Russia-Ukraine war and Europe’s respective shift in its security policies to respond to this conflict, signal a troubling backslide in disarmament commitments, threatening not only regional security but also long-term public health outcomes.

Landmines as a Global Health Catastrophe

Withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention doesn’t just reopen the door to active landmine deployment; it jeopardizes decades of progress in demining and victim assistance. From a public health lens, landmines are not just remnants of war; they are predictable and preventable causes of injury and death. Landmines do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Long after conflicts end, they remain buried hazards: crippling children at play, killing farmers tending their land, and incapacitating entire communities. More than 5,000 people were killed or maimed by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) in 2023, with civilians making up nearly 90% of those casualties. 

Civilians from every corner of the world, from Chad to Chile to Ukraine and Thailand, have been impacted.

Survivors suffer amputations, chronic infections, PTSD, and permanent disability. In many low- and middle-income countries, weak health systems lack the surgical expertise, prosthetic services, and rehabilitation facilities needed to support survivors, further entrenching cycles of poverty and marginalization.

The health impacts are also deeply gendered and racialized in nature. While it remains true that men make up 85-90% of land mine victims, women who are injured by mines often face higher barriers to healthcare access and victim assistance and are thus, at greater risk of social exclusion, especially in patriarchal societies where disability is stigmatized.

Undermining Global Health Commitments

The Ottawa Convention exemplifies humanitarian disarmament—a framework that centers human security, health, and rights rather than strategic or economic advantage. 

Backsliding on the Convention also undermines broader global health and development goals. Landmine contamination hinders access to healthcare, food security, and education, all of which are integral to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). If high-income European countries normalize treaty exit, others may follow, eroding the norm against landmine use and increasing the risk of re-mined conflict zones. Health systems in post-conflict countries, already fragile due to war, displacement, and economic instability, will be left to deal with the humanitarian fallout with little international support.

Moreover, the World Health Organization and other global health actors have recognized violence and injury prevention as a critical pillar of public health. Reintroducing landmines into modern warfare defies this consensus and betrays a global ethic of care and harm reduction.

A Call to Recommit to Life-Saving Norms

As European states weigh the short-term security logic of landmine utility, they must also reckon with the long-term, transgenerational health toll of these weapons. While there has been some conversation on the formal exit of the 6 states from the Ottawa Convention, we must sustain this conversation and bridge it across various movements. The public health community, along with civil society and disarmament advocates, must urgently speak out against treaty withdrawal.

To protect global health:

• States must reaffirm their commitment to the Ottawa Convention and reject militarized policies that threaten civilian lives.
• Investments in mine clearance, survivor rehabilitation, and risk education should be ramped up and not stalled.
• Public health institutions must engage more deeply in disarmament diplomacy, bringing data, survivor stories, and ethical urgency to the policymaking table.

The Ottawa Convention is more than a legal instrument; it is a tacit health treaty. Weakening it threatens the safety, dignity, and futures of millions and sets a dangerous precedent to undermine other disarmament conventions. In an age of polycrisis, recommitting to treaties that safeguard life is not just a moral imperative; it’s a public health necessity.

Aisha (AJ) Rehman is a YPFP Rising Expert on Global Health. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Occupational and Public Health from Toronto Metropolitan University. Her passion for advancing peace and global health has led her to conduct meaningful work across multiple organizations; as a former intern and current board member with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) Canada as well as Communications Coordinator with Youth for TPNW.