Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons : Statement delivered by India during the Meeting of Experts to the CCW Amended Protocol II held in Geneva on August 22, 2019

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Statement delivered by India during the Meeting of Experts to the CCW Amended Protocol II held in Geneva on August 22, 2019

Mr. President,

India would like to congratulate you on assumption of this important responsibility of chairing the Group of Experts Meeting on the Amended Protocol II to the CCW and assures of its full support and cooperation to you and steering our meeting to a successful outcome. My delegation also recognizes the excellent support High Contracting Parties have received from the Secretariat throughout the year.

Before I invite my expert to present India’s efforts in this area, I must commend the presentation on mobile robots by your country, which makes our meetings so much more interesting and keeps us engaged.

Thank you and with your permission I would like to invite our Expert.

Mr. Chair,

India attaches high importance to the full implementation of Amended Protocol II as well as its universalization. We have fulfilled all our obligations under this Protocol related inter alia to non-production of non-detectable mines as well as rendering all our anti-personnel mines detectable, in accordance with the provisions of the Protocol.

Our information regarding our obligations under Amended Protocol II is regularly being disseminated to our armed forces. Additionally, the mines that have been used for our defensive military operations are laid within fenced perimeters and marked in accordance with the requirements as specified strictly in accordance with Amended Protocol II and post these operations, these mines have been cleared, in totality, by our trained troops.

We do believe that Amended Protocol II strikes a fine balance between the humanitarian concerns on landmines on the one hand and the legitimate defence requirements, particularly of States such as ourwhich have long borders.

An integral part of our efforts to avoid civilian casualties is to enhance public awareness on landmines. Further, our mine victims are assisted in rehabilitation with financial compensation, employment and health assistance. India’s ratification of the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities underscores the importance we attach to victim assistance. We would also like to stress the importance of development and sharing of technology to protect civilians against the indiscriminate use of mines as well as in mine clearance.

India is a leading contributor to UN peacekeeping operations and has extended assistance to international demining and rehabilitation efforts worldwide. India’s mine clearance professionals have contributed to both clearance and clearance training in several countries including in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Angola and Afghanistan. We have also supported mine clearance in Sri Lanka. In the last few years, over 500 personnel from various countries have undergone training in India specifically in mine clearance and explosive disposal. We remain committed to providing capacity building and assistance to countries upon their request.

We do believe that Amended Protocol II serves as an appropriate framework additionally for addressing the issue of IEDs under the CCW framework with focus on addressing the threat of IEDs, while also underlining the responsibility for ensuring the rule of law.

India’s Centre of Excellence for training on IEDs has organized several training courses in which a number ofservice personnel from foreign countries have participated alongside Indian participants. Delegations from Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Vietnam have visited the Centre of Excellence during the last few years. Further, personnel from Bhutan, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nepal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Tanzania have actively been trained in counter IED and explosive disposal.

In last one year, we have had a number of exchange programmes in the field of international technical cooperation and assistance to include the following:

Three officers from Indian Army visited Egypt for discussion on areas of future cooperation to include Counter IED (CIED) subject matters from 12 to 13 November 2018.
A three-member delegation from Bangladesh visited our Centre of Excellence for Subject Matter Expert Exchange (SMEE) on CIED from 10 to 12 October 2018.
A seven-member delegation from Australia attended CIED exercise TIGEROO at our Centre of Excellence from 26 October 2018 to 01 November 2018.
A three-member delegation from France visited our Centre of Excellence for SMEE on CIED from 28 to 31 November 2018.
A three-member delegation from Sri Lanka visited our Centre of Excellence for SMEE on CIED and demining from 16 to 18 January 2019.

Finally, Mr. Chair, I would like to assure that we remain committed to our onerous responsibilities as a responsible signatory to Amended Protocol II and we have been annually forwarding our National Reports regularly under our mandate updating the CCW forum of our various activities in upholding the tenets of amended Protocol II.

Thank you, Chair.