§ Ms WardTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the United Kingdom will ratify the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines. [55188]
§ Mr. Robin CookOur instrument of ratification will be deposited with the UN Secretary General in New York today, thus fulfilling our pledge to be among the first forty ratifications and helping to bring the Convention into force.
We have placed in the Library the note accompanying the instrument of ratification, which sets out our understanding that the mere participation in the planning or execution of operations, exercises or other military activity by the United Kingdom's Armed Forces, or individual United Kingdom nationals, conducted in combination with armed forces of States not party to the Ottawa Convention, is not, by itself, assistance, encouragement or inducement for the purposes of Article 1, paragraph 1(c) of the Convention.