Overview

This short course is focusing on landmines, the 'silent killers' that often lie dormant long after active hostilities have ceased. Most of their victims are civilians, including children. Over the years, anti-personnel landmines became cheap, easily accessible and widely available weapons used in both international and non-international conflicts. Today tens of millions of landmines are still buried in over 60 countries and areas around the world, many of them unmarked, unmapped and often left unrecorded.

The United Nations has a number of legal instruments in place which aim at tackling the landmine issue. These include the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and Amended Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Thanks to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the work of the United Nations, and the awareness raised by civil society organisations, great progress has been made, however, there is still a long way ahead before these indiscriminate weapons are eradicated, and they no longer cause devastating social, economic, humanitarian and environmental impact.

This course provides an introduction to landmines and the international legal framework that addresses this issue.

What will participants learn?

Upon completion of this course you will be able to:

• Justify the significance of disarmament and non-proliferation;
• Describe the role the United Nations and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs play in addressing disarmament issues in general and the landmine problem in particular;
• Explain what landmines and explosive remnants of war are, and what kind of threat they pose for the civilian population; and
• Understand the importance and the key provisions of international legal documents that tackle the landmine issue.

	Audience: Diplomats, especially those new to disarmament matters; interested individuals from academia, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations; the media and the general public.
	Components and Methodology: Online Self-paced The course is available in English and is held in the Disarmament Education Dashboard, thus participants need a computer or mobile device, with audio and reliable internet connection. No special software is required.
	Certificate: Upon successful completion of the course, including examination and course evaluation a certificate of completion will automatically be issued to the participant.