Protocol II CCW

Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) governs the use of landmines, booby-traps and "other devices" (manually emplaced munitions designed to kill, injure or damage that are actuated by remote control or by the victim). It was adopted in Geneva on 10 October 1980 alongside the parent Convention and entered into force on 2 December 1983.

The original Protocol II prohibits indiscriminate use of such weapons, bans booby-traps attached to protected objects (medical supplies, children's toys, religious symbols, food, the dead), and requires parties to record minefield locations. However, experience in Cambodia, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia showed these rules were inadequate to address the humanitarian crisis caused by anti-personnel mines.

In response, states negotiated Amended Protocol II, adopted on 3 May 1996 and entering into force on 3 December 1998. It significantly expanded obligations:

• Extends application to non-international armed conflicts, not just inter-state war.
• Requires that remotely delivered anti-personnel mines be detectable (at least 8 grams of iron equivalent) and equipped with self-destruction and self-deactivation mechanisms.
• Shifts responsibility for clearance to the party that laid the mines.
• Mandates protection of UN peacekeeping and humanitarian missions from the effects of these weapons.
• Establishes annual conferences of states parties and national reporting.

Amended Protocol II is often viewed as a less ambitious parallel track to the 1997 Ottawa Convention, which bans anti-personnel mines outright. States that have not joined Ottawa — including the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel — frequently cite Amended Protocol II as the framework regulating their mine use. As of the late 2010s, Amended Protocol II had over 100 states parties. Compliance reporting is reviewed at the annual CCW Group of Experts meetings in Geneva.