SMAC Participation at Fifth Review Conference of Ottawa Convention in Cambodia

The Review Conference is an important mechanism for reviewing and verifying activities in the implementation of the Ottawa Convention, which aims to ban Anti-Personnel mines.

This year, in the period from November 25 to 29, 2024 in Siem Reap, Kingdom of Cambodia, at the Fifth Review Conference of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Ottawa Convention), the results were summarized according to the Action Plan adopted at the conference held in 2019, in Oslo. Furthermore, guidelines were set for future activities in the next five years.

For Serbia, one of the key topics of the conference was the consideration of the request for an extension of the deadline for fulfilling obligations under Article 5 of the Ottawa Convention, which Serbia submitted in March 2024.

SMAC delegation presented the SMAC activities, including the current mine situation in Serbia, with a special emphasis on the municipality of Bujanovac, which is still one of the most affected areas. He also briefed the participants about Serbia’s progress in the field of humanitarian demining and the efforts being made to fulfill the obligations stipulated in Article 5 of the Ottawa Convention.

The request for the deadline extension until December 31, 2026 was adopted at the Conference, which gave Serbia additional time to fulfill its obligations in accordance with the above Convention.

The main goal of the conference was to reaffirm the obligations of the signatory countries to the Mine Ban Convention, which was adopted in 1997, as well as to work on further reduction of the number of mines that threaten the civilian population around the world. The countries that signed this Convention, as well as other interested parties, discussed the progress in humanitarian demining, but also the challenges that still exist.

The Siem Reap-Angkor 2025-2029 Action Plan was adopted at the Conference, which contains specific goals for reducing the number of mines, increasing resources for demining, as well as mine victim assistance. This plan also envisages strengthening international cooperation, including training, technology development and support for mine victims.

The Kingdom of Cambodia, as the host of the Conference, emphasized the importance of continuing the demining process, which has become a priority in the country in recent decades.

This Conference reaffirmed the global commitment to the goal of creating a mine-free world, with clear guidelines for achieving this goal in the coming years.