Introduction

The process that resulted in a legitimate, if not universal, international convention prohibiting the "use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines" has come to be known as the "Ottawa Process". It is described as a "fast track" means to an end that relied upon a crucial partnership between middle and small-sized states and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). That partnership has new as well as traditional characteristics. A number of studies of the Process that produced the Landmine Ban Treaty¹ have appeared in the year since the treaty was signed in December 1997 (Cameron et al., 1998; Hampson and Oliver, 1998; Lenarcic, 1998; Tomlin and Potter, 1998). This paper will look at some key articles from this body of literature, with an eye to the lessons learned by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the process of formulating Canadian foreign policy and how that process might affect future campaigns.

Official Lessons Learned

The "official" Lessons Learned document (DFAIT, 1997b), developed at the end of the treaty signing events in December 1997, is a summary record produced by the Canadian government Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). It appeared in early 1998 and purportedly reflects the results of surveys of participants at the treaty signing events that included a one-day consultation conference (the "Ottawa Process Forum"). The summary is a compilation of data primarily from advocates of the treaty and the Ottawa Process, and reflects the views of supportive government bureaucracies, political offices, NGOs and International Organizations.

There were four sources of information that fed into the Lessons Learned summary: a general survey; two interactive survey groups; two focus groups; and the Ottawa Process Forum, which was organized to "examine the lessons learned in the Ottawa Process and the way forward after the convention signing". Of these, the largest source of information from the 2400 attendees of the December 1997 events was a written survey. While all conference delegates were repeatedly invited to fill in the survey, a minority actually participated (201 respondents -- about 8.4% of those assembled). Those that did were geographically skewed, for fewer than 40 of the survey respondents, were from Africa, the globe's most mine-infested continent.

There were 10 key lessons, according to Lessons Learned. It was learned that: NGO-government partnership was key to the treaty success; the treaty effort succeeded to a great extent because of the humanitarian character of the debate; Public awareness is critical; a "core group" of pro-ban states from various regions added legitimacy to the campaign; NGOs, both national and international, were key influences on governments; and "middle" powers have made headway with the campaign. And it is expected that: the treaty will help solve the mine clearance and victim assistance problem; states will likely comply with the ban; NGOs should be involved in monitoring compliance with the ban treaty; the Ottawa Process model may be useful in other campaigns.

For the purposes of this paper, three core interrelated themes will be explored. There will be some correlation with the lessons and expectations compiled in the official summary, but the focus here is on central concepts pertinent to NGOs that help explain the effectiveness of the Ottawa Process:

1. Was the key objective of the Ottawa Process -- to establish a treaty to ban antipersonnel landmines -- a reasonable goal and a significant achievement?

2.Was the NGO-Government Partnership a productive mechanism to achieve a mutual desirable objective?

3. Can humanitarian principles and codes triumph over military utility.

Finally, in light of these three themes, the conclusion will briefly look at opportunities for applying the Ottawa Process to other campaigns.

1. Key objective was reasonable and significant

Governments pick and choose their campaigns, and the decision to proceed with a campaign to institute a total ban on antipersonnel landmines (APM) through the Ottawa Process was made with one eye on future glory and the other on practicality. Success in the campaign was not preordained. Robert Lawson and his colleagues at Foreign Affairs note that the declaration by Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy in October 1996 to successfully bring home a treaty in 14 months, was met with much criticism from the government representatives assembled. This was a conference of "pro-ban" governments (a group that included the United States), but delegates had agreed only to a lesser consensual position in the form of the "Ottawa Declaration".

Axworthy's 'unilateralism' was not lost on NGOs either. They considered it a welcome expression of leadership and something they would support without reservation. As Warmington and Tuttle note, "Ironically, the move by Canada to initiate the Ottawa Process was an example of unilateralism, a concept not often endorsed by NGOs sensitive to unilateral actions based on 'national security interests'" (Warmington and Tuttle, 1998, 56).

National Mandate

Brian Tomlin concurs with the view that at the critical moments of formulating changes in Canadian foreign and defence policy, government ministers and bureaucrats within DFAIT required a mandate of citizen support. That citizen support was based on a humanitarian abhorrence of the devastation caused by APMs², and was generated in Canada primarily by NGOs active on the landmines issue, as led by Mines Action Canada (Tomlin, 1998, 191). Then-foreign minister André Ouellet was "struck by the futility of spending money for demining at the same time that new mines were being deployed around the world". While Ouellet was stonewalled by Defence Minister Collenette on both a proposal to destroy stockpiles and one to support the U.S. proposal to cosponsor a motion at the UN to establish a moratorium on exports of APMs, Collenette eventually acquiesced on a proposal to announce a Canadian moratorium, but no more. The Foreign Affairs Minister went one step further and issued his "personal view" that mines should be banned everywhere. "The focusing event in the problem stream for Ouellet", writes Tomlin, "was the dissonance between Canadian demining activities and Canada's status quo position on the use of mines, a contradiction that dovetailed with the critique of Canadian policy that NGOs were presenting to the Minister" (Tomlin, 1998, 193). Mines Action Canada, coordinated by Celina Tuttle and chaired by Valerie Warmington, had been the mechanism by which public pressure was directed at the Department of Foreign Affairs. "By Ouellet's reading, the national mood, reflected in public opinion polls and the heavy flow of mail to the minister's office, was clearly supportive of a ban on landmines, and pressure from organized political interests, led by MAC, was overwhelmingly in this direction." DFAIT desk officer Robert Lawson faxed the transcript of Ouellet's "personal view" supporting a ban to Mines Action Canada and "MAC took the statement and ran with it, flooding the minister's office with congratulatory messages on Canada's new policy". While this "unilateralism" by a DFAIT desk officer preceded the ministry of Lloyd Axworthy and the Ottawa Process, it was one indication of the credibility and expertise that was attached to NGOs active on an issue that had until then lain dormant inside Foreign Affairs. It was also an indication of continuing suspicions held by Lawson about the military bureaucracy. In reference to the 1994 defence review, Lawson³ had written in 1995 that while the review began

International Mandate

A fast track ban on landmines faced many obstacles. All five members of the Security Council were on record as opposing the Ottawa Process as a vehicle to achieve a ban, although a number supported a ban formulated through an incremental improvement process at the CCW (Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons) or at the consensus-based CD (United Nations Conference on Disarmament), two institutions that had effectively blocked a ban in the near term⁴. While it is possible to emphasize the blockages within the CCW and the CD (the latter with a membership of only 61, as compared to 123 who signed the Ottawa Treaty in December 1997), there was a great deal of support for an eventual ban on some mines by many states and on all mines by some states if alternatives could be found⁵. 74 states attended the October 1996 conference in Ottawa, titled as 'Towards a Global Ban on Anti-Personnel Mines'. Of these, fifty signed the Ottawa Declaration that supported a ban at the "earliest" opportunity, and among those were the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

Marshall Beier and Ann Denholm Crosby are sceptical about the promise of the Ottawa Process as a mechanism to realize goals beyond the signing of a ratifiable treaty. They suggest that the Convention not only did not achieve broader "human security" goals, as some NGOs, Minister Axworthy and others have claimed, but instead it may have "served as a conduit through which broader military, political, and economic forces could find new ways to realize old interests" (Beier and Crosby, 1998, 269). In other words, the Ottawa Process and its treaty were realizable because they served and reinforced entrenched statist and military objectives. "The central question is whether the Convention -- and the articulation of state/NGO interests that brought it to fruition -- compromises or reinforces status-quo economic, political, and military efforts to sustain traditional state-centric security ideas and practices" (Beier and Crosby, 1998, 275). It is debatable whether the 'central' question of the campaign was or should have been about state centric security assumptions, especially considering the composition of the membership and leadership of the movement⁶, but in any case NGOs and governments seemed to be under no illusions about the nature of the partnership they had entered into, nor the limits of the debate. (These two issues will be pursued further.) However, Beier and Crosby's point is true to the extent that a humanitarian treaty objective did not necessarily disrupt military doctrines even if it would require an adjustment of arsenals. It was therefore an achievable, while reform-minded goal. Despite this conservative-reformist characteristic, the effort dazzled the entrenched positions of many Security Council members, militaries and in particular, the United States Pentagon.

Secondary Objective is more Problematic

The Ottawa Process was designed to cause a ratifiable treaty to be born and to "deal with the APM issue" in a more general sense (DFAIT, 1997b, 10). Dealing with the APM problem more comprehensively meant phrasing had to be inserted into the treaty that authorized the longer term process of mine clearance and victim assistance. Non-governmental organizations supported the "fast track" to ratification, but have insisted that a "developmental approach", and not a quick fix, was the more productive strategy to resolve the larger mine problem⁷. Not all signatory countries have the resources or inclination to address the expense of post-treaty mine clearance, victim rehabilitation and mined community social-economic development. However, signatories are at least legally obligated to provide assistance to mined countries so that mines are removed quickly, stockpiles are destroyed, and care is provided to mine victims. That 'lesson', as delineated in the official Lessons Learned summary, ("the treaty will help solve the mine clearance and victim assistance problem") is a much more speculative, although worthy projection for the campaign, and the future success or failure of it might better challenge or confirm Beier and Crosby's critique of the Ottawa Process' and its capacity for servicing human security criteria.

2. A Tentative Partnership

Warmington and Tuttle of Mines Action Canada draw out the long picture of the evolution of Canadian government policy from the NGO perspective in their essay "The Canadian Campaign"⁸.

Before 1995 there was little common ground between Canadian developmental and disarmament NGOs and the Canadian government on the issue of AP mines. "Government/NGO meetings were often mutually frustrating events, as entrenched positions were repeated to no discernible positive effect" (1998, 49). Warmington and Tuttle note that "the collaborative nature of the NGO-government relationship during the Ottawa Process itself contrasted sharply with early phases of this relationship." Part of the disagreement, but also the reason for eventual progress, was that while the Defence Department was clearly opposed to a ban on landmines, Foreign Affairs in its approach to the issue was split between the Human Security Division and the Arms Control and Disarmament Division (the latter being supported by DND). Thus one characteristic of the partnership between the Canadian government and Mines Action Canada, (this country's coalition of NGOs), was that the conversation was primarily between a section of the Department and Foreign Affairs and MAC, not between MAC and the government as a whole.

This characteristic played out in different ways in many countries. In those countries where there was a heavy military influence on government, or where 'military governments' were in power, there was a significantly reduced role played by NGOs. In a number of countries, the NGO coalitions were poorly developed or non-existent. According to Lessons Learned (DFAIT, 1998b, 5), for instance, 70% of the government respondents to the Ottawa Process survey were from Africa and "other countries"⁹. This "explains why government representatives [in the survey] tended to assign less positive influence to national NGOs" as compared to perceived influence by international NGOs and the international media.

Co-option and Hostages

David Lenarcic's critique of the Ottawa Treaty and Ottawa Process, Knight Errant? (Lenarcic, 1998), is his attempt at devil's advocacy, and it is a useful while sometimes dated look at some of the debates that preceded the Ottawa Treaty¹⁰. Whereas supporters of the Ottawa Process are encouraged by the potential for future collaboration between governments and 'civil society', Lenarcic counters that an "impressive triumph does not necessarily validate either the approach" nor the "ultimate objective of the policy. And this would still be the case even if those outside the treaty ended their holdout, which they may very well do" (Lenarcic, 1998, 93). Lenarcic concludes that Canada should moderate its tone, take heed of its "soft power assets", and seek the "valuable lessons to be learned from the past" in Canada's "Golden Age" of diplomacy. This view is shared by Hampson and Oliver, who are critical of Foreign Affairs Minister Axworthy's "pulpit rhetoric", a form of activism they believe both excludes the "traditional tools of statecraft" (Hampson and Oliver, 1998, 392) and over-emphasizes a recourse to "soft power" rather than "hard power", human security rather than state security, public diplomacy rather than quiet diplomacy, NGOs rather than elected officials. Echoing Jack Granatstein, they ask, "Who elected the NGOs?" (in Hampson and Oliver, p 401).

Nor is there much unique in the "newly" formed relationship between government and NGO, at least in Canada, they argue. NGOs, as represented by business, labour and cultural organizations have had a great deal of influence and involvement in the debates over free trade, and environmental, peace and nuclear policy. There was some 'novelty' in the manner by which Canadian NGOs joined in the formal negotiations of the landmines Convention, they note, but that event may not happen again:

Max Cameron is more generous in his assessment of the partnership under discussion. The Ottawa Process, he argues, opened up the foreign policy-making process to a broader section of society, something that is the "central task of democratizing foreign policy" (Cameron, 1998, 424). The mine issue attained public status, not principally through the leadership of governments in the early stages (although there were sympathetic and active governments), but from NGO persistence, "in-your-face diplomacy" by ICBL leaders and regular attention to publicity by NGOs. Writes Cameron: "The Ottawa Process democratized foreign policy within the framework of existing representative institutions by using a partnership with civil society to expose policy to the test of publicity" (1998, 441). He adds that "[a]dvocates of democratization should rest their defence of civil society-government partnership on publicity, not on participation" (1998, 442).

This distinction is important because a number of critics of the Ottawa Process who note its reformist, and non-transformational character (such as Beier/Crosby and Larrinaga/Turrene Sjolander), seem to imply that NGO ban advocates were not aware who they were dealing with¹². From the vantage point of the state, the "New Multilateralism" that was the Ottawa Process, write Larrinaga and Turrene Sjolander, "can only reinforce existing practices. The transformative potential of the new multilateralism is effectively foreclosed [by being contextualized by the state], limiting itself to the expansion of the 'diplomatic tool-kit'" (1998, 369)."¹³

The key objective of the ICBL campaign, as its name implies, was to respond to the emerging humanitarian crisis caused by AP mines with an immediate ban, and without pause to strategize the development of a transformational movement that could, after a prolonged and likely unsuccessful effort, win a public mandate. An understanding of the nature of the state by members of the campaign is assumed here to be non-controversial and evidenced from the beginning by a regular showing of scepticism, suspicion and a reluctance by NGOs to enter into partnership with government. Yet, humanitarian non-governmental organizations trusted themselves to step into the partnership to gain the benefits of insider discussions, as well as to step out of the partnership if there was need to criticize government intransigence or backsliding.

As Warmington and Tuttle of Mines Action Canada note, having agreed to participate in the CCW Review Conference in April 1996, still "the rituals and nuances of traditional international diplomacy proved to be only too effective in blocking substantive progress" (1998, 55). "Did NGO involvement in the CCW negotiations co-opt them, turn them into stakeholders, or deflect them from their initial objectives?" asks Cameron (1998, 437). The best test case to answer this question is found in the negotiations at Oslo in September 1997, where the final version of the ban treaty was drafted and offered for vote.

Thinking About Blinking in Oslo

One issue that threatened to divide the NGO-government partnership (and to divide members within the ICBL itself) was whether the United States should be given a legal exception to keep its AP mines laid on the South Korean border, mines that were laid ostensibly to fend off an armoured or infantry invasion from the North¹⁴. In a Macleans article in July 1997, just a couple of months before the Oslo negotiations began, reference was made to a meeting between Canadian and American government officials:

A Foreign Affairs official briefed Mines Action Canada about the status of negotiations in the summer of 1997 and stated that he could "perhaps" understand exceptions being made for difficult situations, such as those in Korea and Cuba. Celina Tuttle, coordinator of Mines Action Canada, replied at that meeting, "If you're thinking about blinking, you're going to blink!" (MAC membership meeting, July 1997). MAC issued an "action alert" notice to its membership, warning them of possible efforts to "gut the treaty". In September a report appeared in The Globe and Mail, indicating further interest by Canada in an exception being made for the United States and its Korean ally:

In the final hours of the Oslo meetings, Canada supported an extension to the negotiations being given to the United States which had joined the talks at the last minute and, (according to the ICBL), only in an attempt to weaken the treaty and to insert its own "package" of changes into the text. Valerie Warmington, Chair of Mines Action Canada, and a member of the official Canadian government delegation, notified MAC in Ottawa of the turn of events. MAC then issued a press release in Ottawa, entitled 'ACCEPT NO DELAYS in anti-personnel mine ban: Canada Accused of "Selling Out" Humanitarian Treaty to US Policy' (see appendix 1). The alert was phrased in such a way to allow the Department of Foreign Affairs to come clean. Without hedging on the key principle of "no exceptions, no loopholes", it nonetheless ends on a conciliatory note:

The critical Oslo events are a good indication that NGOs were able to enter into partnership without giving up their independent role. The Oslo debate is evidence too that governments did not feel obliged to give up their right to negotiate in the manner they saw fit. Critics, such as David Lenarcic, however, express fears that NGOs had been given undue influence over government policy throughout the Ottawa Process¹⁵:

But Max Cameron suggests that if there was evidence of government being held 'hostage' by NGOs, then

David Lenarcic is in disagreement with many of the positions held by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (what he calls extremist views of "special interest groups" (1998, 74)). He caricatures the campaign as a narrow-minded, anti-American¹⁶ radical polemic and for proof claims that NGOs "cheered" the announcement of the US decision not to endorse the final treaty draft in Oslo in September 1997. But ICBL coordinator Jodie Williams counters that NGOs continually sought American leadership for a total ban. Without it, the ban's effectiveness could be severely impaired¹⁷.

Soberly, and shortly after the Oslo negotiations in September of 1997, US Senator Patrick Leahy, a strong supporter of the Ottawa Treaty, noted that "while the treaty is immensely important for establishing a new norm of conduct, until the United States signs it there will never be a worldwide ban. There is simply no substitute for the credibility and influence of the United States to bring reluctant nations on board, and make sure that violators of the treaty are caught and punished" (Leahy, 1997).

Not unlike the concerns of critics such as David Lenarcic, prominent ICBL leaders such as Jodie Williams and Steve Goose also perceive a danger of 'hostage'-taking, but by the consensus rules of procedure evident in the Conference on Disarmament and the CCW in Geneva, the two fora that anti-ban states preferred for AP mine discussions:

3. Humanity and Military Utility

The Rules of War

The basic organizational premise of the ban campaign was the revitalization of longstanding, existing international humanitarian law. Stuart Maslen, an Advisor with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) points out that

To the extent that the key objective of the campaign was to reapply existing humanitarian law along the lines defined by the 1949 Geneva Convention and its subsequent Protocols (1977), and to respond to a widening humanitarian crisis caused by weapons detonating often many years after wars had ceased, the landmine ban effort was not a radical departure from universalist principles governing human rights, proportionality, indiscriminancy and unnecessary suffering¹⁸.

DND opposed

In an April 1995 letter to British Columbia MP Svend Robinson, National Defence Minister Collenette referred to the 1994 Defence White Paper that recognized the humanitarian problem related to what was described as the "irresponsible and indiscriminate use" of AP landmines (significantly this was not recognition of the indiscriminant nature, but only "improper use" of AP landmines). Mines Action Canada also revealed an internal Defence Department document in September 1995 indicating that "the only really important Canadian goal with respect to transfer (of mines) is to obtain an exemption from the U.S. export moratorium" (See Collins, 1998a). At the time, Canada did not want to declare a ban even as a long term goal¹⁹. Defence Minister Collenette stated publicly that DND was opposed to a ban on landmines:

This position of the Canadian government Defence Department was not unlike the position of the United States military. In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, 16 high-ranking military officers, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili, took the view that they were

But somewhere between November 1995 and January 1996, the worm had turned. It had become politically expedient for Foreign Affairs to be given the authority at the expense of the Department of National Defence on the AP mine issue. Not supporting a ban might have become a liability. Tomlin points out that

By the summer of 1995, Mines Action Canada (supporting the position taken by the International Red Cross) argued that AP mines were inherently indiscriminant and "thus illegal under international humanitarian law regardless of how or in what circumstances they were used" (Warmington and Tuttle, 1998, 51). Between the summer of 1995 and the end of 1995, pressure from the coalition and from the effect of publicity that MAC had generated contributed to signs of change in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Significantly, a moratorium on production, transfer and use of AP mines was announced on January 17, 1996 by Canada. This position garnered some support from other governments, but also from a sceptical MAC which noted that the moratorium (as opposed to a permanent ban) "banned the use of landmines unless needed, and did not seek to reduce or eliminate stockpiled mines" (1998, 54).

There is little evidence to suggest that the Department of National Defence was convinced by those within its own bureaucracy of the need for a ban on AP mines. However, an influential International Committee of the Red Cross document released in March of 1996, was quickly promoted by the Department of Foreign Affairs as a "military" point of view on the utility of APMs. The signatories to that document included two retired Canadian military officers, Major Ted Itani and Major General Lewis Mackenzie.

The Red Cross booklet in question, "Anti-personnel Landmines: Friend or Foe", made three significant claims: In no conflict since 1940 among the 26 considered did APMs play a major role in determining the victor; APMs may have limited, though questionable, military utility; but most significantly, the humanitarian costs of the weapons outweigh any military utility.

Beier/Crosby critique

The problem with the statist and militarist perspective, Beier and Crosby point out, is that the legitimizing context for the use of military force in the first place was not challenged. Worse, the Red Cross booklet "Friend of Foe" took up the discussion about 'alternatives' to landmines, and by doing so "reinforced traditional state security practices by engaging states in the debate about landmines on their own terms".²⁰ Strong criticism is reserved for international organizations such as the International Red Cross and the ICBL for seizing upon the report, the conclusions of which invalidated many of the military arguments against landmine utility. But by engaging in these arguments at all, Beier and Crosby argue, the International Red Cross

This may be unfairly severe criticism. The Red Cross did not write the report. The publication, while commissioned by the Red Cross (ICRC), was the result of a study by military experts, not humanitarian advocates per se²¹. In its defence, the ICRC has been front and centre in the development of a substantial inventory of international humanitarian law (IHL), especially in efforts limiting the domain of warfare²². Missing in the Beier-Crosby critique is recognition of that role of an enhanced body of IHL in the establishment of a global demilitarizing ethic. There is little recognition of the trickle-down consequences of a new taboo, and in particular the significance of the stigmatization of antipersonnel landmines on the basis of their "effect". Are these not major contributions to the "demilitarized pursuit", and positive movements in the direction of "the pursuit of human security" (1998, 271)?

Stigma and taboo

A view throughout David Lenarcic's monograph is the notion that while a ban is unrealistic, a restriction of the use of mines through some kind of control mechanism is both feasible and desirable. "If doing away with antipersonnel land mines entirely is impractical²³ then a closer examination of methods that would enhance control of them may be more advisable" (Lenarcic, 1998, 41). Mechanisms that could prove capable of "controlling" the land mine problem²⁴, for some reason could not be used to advance a total ban that might better pinch off the problem. Monitoring and verification, penalty assessment and sanction would apply in any control regime, and the illegal transfer and manufacture of mines by recalcitrant states poses difficulties whether the ban is intended to be partial or total. Lanarcic supports the view that it is easier to:

In essence, Lenarcic criticizes ban advocates as being too optimistic in their approach. While agreeing that stigmatization could resolve the problem of "legitimate military use" having "illegitimate civilian effect", expecting the "remaining naysayers" to come on side "puts an inordinate amount of faith in the power of a moral imperative". Lenarcic's scepticism towards an improved moral regime is supported by Fen Hampson and Dean Oliver who ask whether effective change will come about through the promulgation of new law and norms, or enforcement of existing laws (1998, 404). It is true that existing international humanitarian law governing proportionality and indiscriminancy was called upon to justify a ban on AP mines, and that in effect the weapon was indirectly banned on paper long before the Ottawa Treaty was considered. That, however, is not the reasoning behind the critique by ban opponents who do not accept the view that APMs are "inherently indiscriminant". Lenarcic, Hampson and Oliver, (unlike the NGOs), believe that because AP mines can be "properly used", therefore the issue is the enforcement of laws against "improper use".

Even if it is true that AP mines should have been banned long ago (as proponents argue and critics deny), no norm or stigma until recently has successfully linked the weapon to existing humanitarian law, (itself evidence of a weak or non-existent taboo.) Nor did widespread publicity attached to the ban campaign result in explicit abolition of the weapon in the CD and CCW, or result in its widespread "proper use".²⁵ Failure of the available fora to enforce existing IHL contributed to the consideration of a fast track approach.

Ban supporters have encouraged states that would not sign the treaty to pursue moratoria on exports and other restrictions upon use, and that has borne some fruit. This has been touted as evidence of the beginning of a new global norm and taboo against APMs. Robert Lawson, for instance, notes that following the success of the treaty effort,

Mines Action Canada had recommended that an "empty seat" be placed at the treaty signing table, in part to indicate that holdout states were always welcome to sign on and join the momentum.²⁶ Supporters of the Ottawa Process were never deluded to think that a universal ban would be immediate. Indeed, few supporters expected a turnout of 122 signing states in December 1998 (Williams and Goose, 1998, 46; Lawson et al., 1998, 181). However, as did the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, DFAIT believed that the momentum towards a ban would play a significant role in reducing the use of the weapon. "[C]onsiderable evidence suggested that efforts to establish a new international norm against the trade in landmines had, at least temporarily, yielded a radical reduction if not a total halt in the international flows of AP mines" (Lawson, 1998, 166). If banned by a number of states, even with non-signatory, illegal, and black market production, there would be a recognizable and hopefully continued decline in the manufacture, trade and use of the device ²⁷.

Richard Price, who has authored a major work on the chemical weapons taboo, recognizes the difficulties that a treaty banning landmines must overcome, and in particular, the "elusiveness of AP mines for an enforcement regime". However "while the ease with which even crude AP mines can be made in workshop conditions is seen as making a treaty unverifiable, such production, at least, is unlikely to be of the vast industrial scale that has precipitated the enormity of the landmines problem" (Price, 1998, 359). Price agrees that if countries like the US are any barometer, even non-signatory states have been already affected by the ban momentum. The US, by committing itself to stopping the use of mines in Korea by 2006, "has moved significantly towards a de facto AP mine ban despite not being a party to the treaty." Demanding perfection misses the point, and as Price concludes:

Ultimately a taboo or norm is more important than a universally supported treaty. Customary international law forms part of that continuum that links taboos to state law. International laws are violated on occasion, but in other instances norms are adhered to even in the absence of international law²⁸.

Conclusion:
The Ottawa Process as a model for other campaigns?

The United States Pentagon²⁹ has shown that it fears the precedent of bowing to international public opinion, the influence of NGOs, middle powers and the intervention of humanitarian values into the military debate -- and much more so than losing any temporary military advantage that AP mines can offer. Success for humanitarian values at the expense of (real or imagined) military advantage for the Pentagon, was considered to be a major victory for public diplomacy over entrenched tradition. Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy said as much when he addressed NGOs in Oslo on September 10: "A ban on anti-personnel land mines is a primary response to the immorality of war. It demonstrates our unwillingness to accept a growing humanitarian crisis as some sort of inevitable by-product of the requirements of military strategy." While Price and others have cited the movement by the US towards a ban (or a ban "if alternatives are found") by 2006, US activist Senator Patrick Leahy has noted that landmines might not even be the issue. "The Pentagon is understandably deeply reluctant to give up a weapon that has some utility, even if doing so would help pressure others to end the suffering of innocent people... It has always resisted giving up weapons, from poison gas in the 1920s to nuclear testing in the 1990s" (Leahy, 1997).

It has been suggested elsewhere that the Ottawa Process might very well act as a guide leading to successful conclusions in other areas -- the campaigns to limit the use of illegal small arms, to expand the taboo against child soldiers, and to develop the International Criminal Court have been named as potential next efforts. While not the purpose of this paper, elements of the government-government fast track "new multilateralism" which was the "other" major component of the Ottawa Process also raised the hackles of critics such as Lenarcic, Oliver and Hampson. This new toolbox included 1. a reaching out to middle power states as a workaround to the intransigence of the great powers, 2. concentrating on a core group of "like-minded states" that was geographically representative and committed to rapidly propelling the campaign forward , 3. generating momentum through "public diplomacy" in parallel with "quiet diplomacy", and 4. devising a self-selection screening process for conference participation that ensured that the lowest common denominator was reasonably high.

NGOs learned that an effective campaign could be successful and fruitful if the issue was clear, possible, and well thought out; if the government was criticized when wrong but applauded when right; and if NGOs were committed to their traditional niche of perpetually badgering the public and government into action. Humanitarian principles triumphed over arguments based upon military utility, and even where some utility was shown, the humanitarian ethic proved to be more convincing. Partnership with government was difficult at times, but usually productive, and (surprising to some) allies were found on occasion from within the ranks of the military itself.

The nuclear weapons abolition campaign has frequently been left off the list of "next Ottawa Process campaigns". The Ottawa Process Forum did not mention the nuclear weapons abolition campaign, at least in the summary report that was issued, and this was in spite of the interest shown by a number of nuclear weapon abolition activists, some of whom also happen to be members of Mines Action Canada³⁰. There are some differences between the nuclear weapon and APM abolition campaigns, the least of which is not the fact that "landmines are almost a peripheral security concern of major governments, whereas nuclear weapons are central to their perceived security concerns " (Doug Roche in Collins, 1998c, 4).

While there has been recent movement by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canada in its consideration of a new policy towards nuclear weapons, existing policy has generally been ambiguous³¹. This ambiguity suggests that the waryness that NGOs have shown towards their government partners will continue. Any symbiosis between NGO and government is likely to be tentative, where independent roles and spheres of expertise are assumed. Max Cameron's reading of the primary role of both national and international NGOs in the landmine effort as a generator of public opinion, rather than as the alternative source of policy for government, rings true. Mines Action Canada appears to have held the Canadian government in check throughout the Ottawa Process, while international NGOs may have more often caught DFAIT's ear. Informing and challenging the bureaucracy and informing and challenging the public with ventures into debate and advocacy all play into the democratization of foreign policy process. Significantly, the "softening up" of the public by coalitions such as MAC has allowed for the creation of a public constituency and mandate that allowed a great deal of risk-taking by DFAIT and by the Foreign Minister himself. DFAIT's "mine action team" faced opposition from the Canadian military establishment, the Pentagon, United Nations Security Council, NATO and mine producing allies. NGO support itself was conditional for both historical and contemporary reasons.

Richard Sanders of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade, for instance, recognized the inconsistency in Canada supporting a ban on AP mines (a weapon not used by Canada since the Korean War), while continuing its sale of weapons abroad. "Canada is still exporting a wide array of military hardware to countries which are engaged in wars and/or the repression of democracy and human rights." (See Collins, 1998b, 4)

If the Ottawa Process is ever to lead us beyond the reform of existing state and military assumptions and towards the transformational approach to human security advocated by Beier and Crosby in their critique, we will need to seek more evidence of an actively engaged public. They, being the agents and beneficiaries of change in the first place, (and encouraged by the possibilities, at least for disarmament and development of humanitarian law, in the post-Ottawa Process period), might now be more favourably inclined to take an additional step.

1 The official title of the landmine ban treaty is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and On Their Destruction.

2 An estimated 26,000 people fall victim to APMs every year. Until recently, mines were being sown faster than they were being removed. The cost of removal in dollars and in developmental terms has been devastating to war-ravaged societies.

3 Lawson, prior to being employed by DFAIT, was an academic at Carleton University in Ottawa.

4 The consensus structure of the CD and CCW enabled any single recalcitrant state to establish the maximum position.

5 Robert Gard (1998, 152) and others have drawn attention to APM alternatives. Many of them, however, in the eyes of NGOs are no better for humanitarian reasons. Even non-lethal alternatives are seen by some as ultimately justifying military solutions to conflict. The ICRC-commissioned report "Friend or Foe" also refers to alternatives.

6 It is difficult to generalize about the degree of politicization of members of the campaign. The coordinator of the ICBL represented Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Mines Action Canada included groups such as the Anglican Church of Canada, Canadian Baptist Ministries, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Canadian Lutheran World Relief, Christian Children's Fund of Canada, Oxfam Canada, Presbyterian World Service and Development, United Nations Association in Canada, World Vision.

7 The treaty should be a means to an end, and not an end in itself. A developmental focus meant that there was a requirement for a comprehensive and integrated plan for reconstruction and development, such as the proposals found in the ICBL's "Bad Honnef Guidelines".

8 They note that an ongoing concern in the campaign was that legal obligations limited the proportion of NGO funds that can be devoted to lobbying government without jeopardizing an organization's charitable status. To a certain extent the formation of Mines Action Canada as a coalition of NGOs circumvented that problem, but it also challenged the government and critics to 'pull the plug' on funding to NGOs, an action that the government had not been adverse to doing in the recent past.

9 'Other' countries were those from "Central America, South American, the Middle-East, Caribbean, Asia and South Asia".

10 'Dated' because many of the debates raised by Lenarcic had arguably been resolved even before December 1997.

11 'Betrayed' is an interesting word to have used. It assumes that certain government expectations of NGOs had been agreed to. It also implies that NGOs in one campaign are in close touch with other campaigns. Further on, the authors agree that "not all NGOs are alike" but that it is "important to ask for whom this vast array of organizations with different intersts, sources of funding, and constituencies (both nationally and globally) speaks" (Hampson and Oliver, 1998, 401).

12 Beire and Crosby seem to not have benefited from direct conversation with the leadership of Mines Action Canada, a failing that Max Cameron does not share.

13 Contrary to the more optimistic conventional wisdom, according to Larringa and Turrene Sjolander the transformational character of the ban campaign ended when the Ottawa Process began (1998,379--383).

14 The utility of these mines is in question, regardless of the small delay they afford to the disabling of anti-tank mines. North Korea is known to have dug beneath the minefields and it is believed that an infantry attack from the North would be virtually suidical. One report, "Exploding the Landmine Myth in Korea" appeared in August 1997 during the debate about an 'exception' for Korea (Demilitarization for Democracy, 1997).

15 There is little evidence to show that the independence of the Canadian government agenda was compromised, nor that DFAIT would kowtow to NGO sensitivities after the treaty event either. For instance, in March 1998, a workshop on Mine Action Coordination was held in Ottawa at which the ICBL and governments met. A consultation meeting with MAC took place at the suggestion of Foreign Affairs only days before the conference. This was the first meeting since the December treaty signing event and in it MAC was shown the agenda of the forthcoming conference. For the first time they were informed that the 'purpose' of the pending conference would be to position the United Nations as the coordinating body for mine action, a policy that would not win much favour anywhere within the ICBL. ICBL member groups generally considered that community-based NGOs were better suited to coordinating themselves.

16 This is not to say that there was no anti-Americanism in the campaign, including from DFAIT sources, but it is unlikely that any such bias was more prominent in the ICBL, (where a majority of the leadership was from the US campaign), than in the community at large.

17 In Oslo NGOs cheered the final draft of the treaty remaining intact (and improved from its earlier incarnation) despite US pressure to 'gut' it. Williams and Goose write that "as the negotiations were gavelled to a close the diplomats were cheered and thanked by the NGO community -- perhaps for the first time in their diplomatic lives" (1998, 45).

18 Robin Coupland and Peter Herby of the International Red Cross have drawn attention to the danger of banning weapons only, rather than effects of weapons. Coupland points out that earlier treaties banning means of warfare (St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868 proposing the banning of exploding bullets, Hague Declaration banning dum-dum bullets, Geneva Protocol of 1925 banning chemical and biological weapons) condemned the weapons because they were "horrific" or "inhumane" (Coupland, 1996,1). He and his colleagues have been developing an inventory of criteria that define horrific and inhumane to legally clarify what constitutes "superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering". While this project, known as the SIrUS Project, is an important departure from present thinking on weapons abolition, it also presumes that weapons can be graded along a scale from bad to worse, and that there are and should be rules to war: "Is there such a thing as necessary suffering? [The question poses] a moral problem for pacifists, the medical profession and those who believe in complete disarmament. Use of weapons must generate suffering. Whether use of weapons is necessary is a debate that goes beyond the scope of the SIrUS Project which regards weapons as neither acceptable nor unacceptable. The project represents an attempt to limit the types of weapon that might be used in war; this attempt will fail if the criteria are refuted because they do not represent total disarmament" (Coupland, 1997, 16).

19 Defence Minister Collenette believed that "the use of landmines is an important element of Canadian Forces doctrine" and "Canadian Forces' use of landmines is consistent with very stringent international standards".

20 The Red Cross commissioned the study that led to the booklet, which the ICRC then published.

21 It is not known whether the Red Cross would have released the study if the conclusions had been supportive of the continued military use of APMs, but it is assumed here that the report was an objective analysis of the subject by military experts. Together with re-evaluations of the utility of mines in battlefields such as Vietnam, where "friendly" mines caused significant U.S. casualties, it seems to have had profound effect on military thinking about APMs.

22 The Red Cross has recently been engaged in a major report aimed at disqualifying a whole range of weapons based on their "superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering" -- in effect banning weapons based on their "effect" (Coupland, 1997).

23 It should be noted that Lenarcic supports the limited, "proper use" of mines. His playing the role of devil's advocate here (ie, that a ban is "impractical"), obscures his support for APMs as legitimate weapons, if "properly used".

24 The Ottawa Treaty includes compulsory fact-finding mechanisms (in Article 8), and relies upon both civil society monitoring and stigmatization of the weapon.

25 NGOs argue that APMs are 'inherently' inhumane and indiscriminant weapons because they do not distinguish between soldier and civilian. The Red Cross report, "Friend or Foe?" noted that mines were used "improperly" by both "legitimate" militaries and non-state actors, and that this is unlikely to change because legitimate use is unenforceable. There is a need therefore to cut off the supply through a complete ban.

26 The 'seat at the table' proposal was rejected by DFAIT, the reason given being that unnamed men in 'blue suits' were opposed to the idea.

27 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Joseph Rotblat, commenting on the possibility of cheating in a nuclear weapons ban regime, noted that while cheating is always possible, it is more desirable to work from a ban position with cheating than from the status quo where there is no ban at all.

28 Some of the best examples of this practice can be found in parts of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), in the provisions on fisheries. There it is noted that customary law and the practice of states have legally bound even those states that are not parties to UNCLOS. Leonard Cole notes that "an unpleasant paradox has emerged. More states than ever are signing international agreements to eliminate chemical and biological arms. Yet more are also suspected of developing these weapons despite the treaties. But beneath all these pragmatic concerns lies another dimension that deserves more emphasis than it generally receives: the moral repugnance of these weapons. Their ability to cause great suffering, coupled with their indiscriminate character, no doubt contributes to the deep-seated aversion most people have for them. And that aversion seems central to explaining why bioweapons have so rarely been used in the past. Contrary to analyses that commonly ignore or belittle the phenomenon, this natural antipathy should be appreciated and exploited. Even some terrorists could be reluctant to use a weapon so fearsome that it would permanently alienate the public from their cause" (Cole, 1996).

29 While the official U.S. government position was to oppose signing the APM ban treaty, it is believed that sections of the State Department and possibly the President were supportive, and that opposition was organized from the Pentagon.

30 Project Ploughshares, for example, is an active proponent of both APM and nuclear weapons abolition. Debbie Grisdale (Physicians for Global Survival), Bev Delong (Lawyers for Social Responsibility) and Robin Collins (United Nations Association in Canada) are all active nuclear weapons abolitionists and members of MAC's Steering Committee.

31 Canada presently supports the World Court Opinion that essentially declared nuclear weapons to be illegal in most circumstances, but until November 1998, has publicly opposed changes in NATO's nuclear policy. Canada has also opposed immediate measures to begin negotiations towards a nuclear weapons ban. rc/16nov98

References:

Lloyd Axworthy, "Towards a New Multilateralism", in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 448--459.

J. Marshall Beier and Ann Denholm Crosby, "Harnessing Change for Continuity: The Play of Political and Economic Forces Behind the Ottawa Process", in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998.

Brig.(retired) Patrick Blagden, Anti-personnel Landmines, Friend or Foe?, Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross, 1996.

Maxwell Cameron, "Democratization of Foreign Policy: The Ottawa Process as a Model", in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 424--447.

Maxwell Cameron et al. (eds.), To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998.

Leonard Cole, "The Specter of Biological Weapons", Scientific American (December 1996): internet version.

Robin Collins (1998a), Å NGOs and Civil-Military Relations: The landmines ban, a presentation to a seminar of East European military officers at Carleton University (spring 1998).

Robin Collins (1998b), "NGO-Government Collaboration: Are we being taken for a ride?", in Communiqué, Bulletin of the NCR Branch of the United Nations Association in Canada, 9, 4 (March 1998): p. 4.

Robin Collins (1998c), "The Middle Powers Initiative: An Interview with Doug Roche", Peace and Environment News Supplement, 13, 8 (October 1998): p. 4--5.

Robin Coupland, "The Effect of Weapons: Defining Superfluous Injury and Unnecessary Suffering", in Medicine and Global Survival, 3 A1, (1996): p. 1--6.

Robin Coupland (ed.), The SIrUS Project: Towards a determination of which weaons cause "superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering", Geneva: ICRC, 1997.

Miguel de Larrinaga and Claire Turenne Sjolander, "(Re)presenting Landmines from Protector to Enemy: The Discursive Framing of a New Multilate Qralism" in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 364--391.

Demilitarization for Democracy, Exploding the Landmine Myth in Korea, Washington: DFD, August 1997.

Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, An Agenda for Mine Action, Ottawa: DFAIT, 1997a

Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Lessons Learned from the Ottawa Process, Ottawa: DFAIT, 1997b

Tim Draimin and Betty Plewes, "Civil Society and the Democratization of Foreign Policy", in Canada Among Nations 1995, Democracy and Foreign Policy, Toronto: Carleton University Press, 1995: p. 63--82.

Robert G. Gard Jr., "The Military Utility of Anti-Personnel Mines", in To Walk Without Fear:

The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 136--157.

Fen Hampson and Dean Oliver, "Pulpit Diplo ‹macy", International Journal, LIII, 3 (Summer 1998): p. 379--406.

Robert Lawson, "Construction of Censensus: The 1994 Canadian Defence Review", in Canada Among Nations 1995, Democracy and Foreign Policy, Toronto: Carleton University Press, 1995: p. 99--117.

Robert Lawson et al., "The Ottawa Process and the International Movmement to Ban Anti-Personnel Mines", in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 160--184.

Patrick Leahy, Address to the US Senate, Sept 23, 1997, (source unavailable).

David A. Lenarcic, Knight-Errant? Canada and the Crusade to Ban Anti-Personnel Land Mines, Toronto: Irwin, 1998,

Brian Tomlin, "On a Fast Track to a Ban: The Canadian Policy Process", i yn To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 185--211.

Brian Tomlin and Evan Potter (eds.), The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, (Canadian Foreign Policy, Spring 1998), Ottawa: Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, 1998.

Stuart Maslen, "The Role of The International Committee of the Red Cross", in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 80--98.

The Ottawa Convention, 18 September 1997, "Appendix B" in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 464--478.

Richard Price, "Compliance with International Norms and the Mines Taboo", in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 340--363.

Richard Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Jeff Sallot, "Axworthy Confident Land-mine Deal Close", in The Globe and Mail, Toronto: September 3, 1997: p. 1.

Bruce Wallace, "The Battle to Ban Land Mines, Support Grows for Canada's Crusade", in Maclean's, Toronto: July 1, 1997: p. 34-36.

Valerie Warmington and Celina Tuttle, "The Canadian Campaign" in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 48--59.

Jody Williams and Stephen Goose, "The International Campaign to Ban Landmines" in To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines, Toronto: Oxford, 1998: p. 20--47.


APPENDIX 1:
For immediate release
September 16, 1997

ACCEPT NO DELAYS in anti-personnel mine ban
Canada accused of "selling out" humanitarian treaty to US policy

The Canadian government's apparent accommodation of US demands for exemptions for continued use of antipersonnel (AP) mines, cloaked as a transition period, has outraged citizens in Canada and around the world. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) gathered in Oslo are accusing Canada of "selling out" a comprehensive ban of AP mines in order to accommodate U.S. policy. "I don't feel very proud today," says Celina Tuttle, coordinator of the Mines Action Canada coalition. "This is so damaging to what has been accomplished, and in such stark contrast to Minister Axworthy's words over the past year. We have never felt the United States entered this process honorably."

The Government of Canada has said repeatedly the landmine crisis is a humanitarian issue and one which requires immediate action. "We cannot allow negotiations to fall into traditional habits and approaches ... this is not a traditional arms-control negotiation. It is a humanitarian issue," Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy said in October 1996. Again, in Oslo on September 10, he said "We must concentrate on the business at hand. Negotiations toward a treaty must be successfully concluded in a way that results in a clear and unambiguous ban. In complete contradiction to the total ban line Prime Minister Jean Chrétien today said some exceptions are acceptable because of "technical elements of a military nature" and the ban does not apply to anti-tank mines. Chrétien's statement is in reference to AP mines packaged with anti-tank mines and recently re-defined by the US as submunitions. The Canadian delegation in Oslo, Norway at 9:15 p.m. local time today had received no new negotiating instructions.

Tne most recent US proposal requires a 9-year deferral period for continued use of AP mines in Korea and elsewhere and to continue use, production, stockpiling and transfer (in addition to the 10 years for mine clearance in the existing aeaty draft) and no restrictions on withdrawal from the treaty during armed conflict. The US has said that if any of these items is rejected, it will not sign.

A State Department spokesman James Foley said today in Washington the 9-vear deferral period for continued use could accommodate US security concerns in Korea, however "if at the end of that period the situation has not changed in Korea and technological developments have not occurred then if absolutely necessary we would withdraw from the treaty under those circumstances."

Tuttle said "When these treaty discussions began September 1, the U.S. position was unacceptable and it remains unacceptable today. The Canadian public's concern with humanitarian issues around landmines compelled Ottawa to initiate the ban process in the first place; it compels our government to resist accommodating US or any other country's exemptions. Canada's support for US exemptions would be a sell-out of the trust and faith Canadians placed in the government to address this issue quickly. If the U.S. isn't prepared to sign the ban treaty now, it can sign later. There is nothing to prevent their doing that.

"Nine years is not an urgent response to a humanitarian crisis. A nine-year delay is not the "fast-track" approach to a comprehensive ban which Canada touted in the Conference on Disarmament and in other fora. Nine years is not an urgent response to a crisis of this magnitude."

While in Oslo Axworthy commended the joint efforts of civil society and committed govemments in the ban proccss as having the "power to change the dynamics and direction of the intemational agenda." He said unprecedented progress and cooperation on this issue shows civil society is "now part of the way decisions have to be made." Governments and NGOs alike have praised Canada for initiating the Ottawa Process as a new way of conducting international diplomacy where smaller nations can take initiative without being coerced by big powers.

For information contact
Celina Tuttle, tel:
Robin Collins, tel:
Debbie Grisdale, tel:
In Oslo contact Valerie Warmington or the NGO Secretariat