Anti-personnel mines are back in the legal debate. Ukraine says it has suspended the Mine Ban Convention during war. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland have completed withdrawal from the same treaty. The legal question is narrower. Once the treaty ban weakens, what law is still left?
Main legal takeaway
The Mine Ban Convention still imposes a categorical ban on anti-personnel mines for states that remain bound by it.
The current problem is different. Ukraine has claimed to suspend its obligations in wartime, and five nearby states have already left through Article 20 withdrawal procedures. That does not create a legal vacuum. Outside the treaty, mine use still faces other limits, including CCW Amended Protocol II for its parties and customary IHL rules on minimizing indiscriminate effects, recording minefields, and clearing or neutralizing them after hostilities.
How this article approaches the law
This brief focuses on one issue: what law governs anti-personnel mines now that the treaty ban is under direct pressure in Europe.
It starts with the Mine Ban Convention, especially Articles 1 and 20. It then turns to the fallback framework that remains outside the treaty.
Ukraine remains listed as a state party to the Convention. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland are listed as former parties. Russia and the United States are not parties. That matters because the current legal fight is not one problem but two: whether Ukraine can lawfully suspend the treaty during war, and what law remains for states that have lawfully withdrawn.
Reader key
Mine Ban Convention Article 1 says each state party undertakes never, under any circumstances, to use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain, or transfer anti-personnel mines.
Mine Ban Convention Article 20 allows withdrawal, but if the withdrawing state is engaged in armed conflict when the six-month period expires, the withdrawal does not take effect before the end of the armed conflict.
CCW Amended Protocol II does not ban all anti-personnel mines, but it restricts how mines, booby-traps, and other devices may be used.
Customary Rule 81 requires particular care to minimize the indiscriminate effects of landmines.
Customary Rule 82 requires a party using landmines to record their placement, as far as possible.
Customary Rule 83 requires removal or neutralization of landmines at the end of active hostilities, or cooperation in making them harmless to civilians.
July 2025
Ukraine did not take the clean Article 20 route. It notified other states parties in July 2025 that it had decided to suspend the operation of the Mine Ban Convention.
That is the core legal problem. The treaty expressly regulates withdrawal. It does not expressly regulate suspension.
Ukraine’s practical argument is easy to understand. Russia is not a party to the treaty and has used anti-personnel mines in the conflict. But battlefield reciprocity does not answer the treaty question.
December 2025 to February 2026
Five other states took a different path. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania completed withdrawal on 27 December 2025. Finland followed on 10 January 2026. Poland followed on 20 February 2026.
Those cases are cleaner as a matter of treaty procedure. They used Article 20. Ukraine did not.
Their common justification was regional security. The argument was that the security environment on NATO’s eastern flank had deteriorated sharply and that anti-personnel mines should return to the list of available defensive systems.
What withdrawal changes
For a state that has lawfully left the treaty, Article 1’s categorical ban no longer binds it as treaty law.
That is the central legal effect of withdrawal. The debate is no longer confined to long-time non-parties. It now includes former states parties in Europe that accepted the ban and then stepped outside it.
What withdrawal does not change
Leaving the treaty does not make anti-personnel mines legally unconstrained.
For states that are party to CCW Amended Protocol II, that protocol still regulates mine use. Customary IHL still requires care to minimize indiscriminate effects, record placement as far as possible, and remove or neutralize mines after active hostilities.
The legal baseline therefore shifts from “never use” to “use remains regulated.”
What supports the pro-withdrawal position legally
Article 20 permits withdrawal. A state that leaves through that clause can say it used the treaty’s own exit rule.
Outside the treaty, a state can also argue that anti-personnel mines return to the list of available weapons, subject to the remaining law of armed conflict.
What creates legal pressure
Article 1 says “never under any circumstances.” Article 20 delays the effect of withdrawal for a state engaged in armed conflict. Those provisions make Ukraine’s claimed suspension especially hard to defend.
A second pressure point is erosion of the rule itself. Once more states leave, the treaty ban becomes thinner as a practical restraint even if it remains legally strong for current states parties.
Likely legal implications
Ukraine’s case should not be treated as just another withdrawal. It is a law-of-treaties problem about whether a humanitarian disarmament treaty can be suspended unilaterally during war.
The five completed withdrawals raise a different issue. They show that states can move from a categorical treaty ban to a thinner framework of fallback regulation.
That does not produce a return to legal free use. It produces a narrower and less protective legal baseline.
Final assessment
Anti-personnel mines are back as a legal issue because the treaty ban is now under direct pressure.
Ukraine tests whether a state can pause the treaty during war. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Poland test what remains once states leave it through Article 20. The strongest conclusion is that the ban is no longer the whole story. But its erosion does not create a legal void. It leaves a thinner and less protective body of law in its place.
Selected sources
Primary legal authorities
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, Article 1
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/apmbc/article-1
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, Article 20
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/apmbc/article-20
CCW Amended Protocol II
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/ccw-amended-protocol-ii-1996
ICRC Customary IHL Rule 81
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule81
ICRC Customary IHL Rule 82
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule82
ICRC Customary IHL Rule 83
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule83
Treaty status and current convention material
Mine Ban Convention membership page
https://www.apminebanconvention.org/en/membership
U.N. treaty status page for the Mine Ban Convention
https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?chapter=26&clang=_en&mtdsg_no=XXVI-5&src=TREATY
Estonia withdrawal notification
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/CN/2025/CN.360.2025-Eng.pdf
Lithuania withdrawal notification
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/CN/2025/CN.362.2025-Eng.pdf
Poland withdrawal notification
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/CN/2025/CN.421.2025-Eng.pdf
Legal commentary and current debate
Ukraine’s Suspension of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/ukraines-suspension-anti-personnel-mine-ban-convention/
Why Nordic governments must uphold the global ban on anti-personnel mines
https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2026/04/02/why-nordic-governments-must-uphold-the-global-ban-on-anti-personnel-mines/
