A/RES/52/38
Page 2
Recalling the Ottawa Declaration of 5 October 19961 and the Brussels Declaration of 27 June 19972
urging the international community to negotiate an international and legally binding agreement prohibiting
the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines,
Emphasizing the desirability of attracting the adherence of all States to the Convention on the Prohibition
of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, and
determined to work strenuously towards the promotion of its universalization in all relevant forums including,
inter alia, the United Nations, the Conference on Disarmament, regional organizations and groupings, and
review conferences of the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional
Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects,3
Basing itself on the principle of international humanitarian law that the right of the parties to an armed
conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited, on the principle that prohibits the
employment in armed conflicts of weapons, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare of a nature to
cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and on the principle that a distinction must be made
between civilians and combatants,
Welcoming the conclusion of negotiations on 18 September 1997 at Oslo on the Convention on the
Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their
Destruction,
1. Invites all States to sign the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and
Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, which was open for signature at Ottawa on 3 and
4 December 1997 and at Headquarters in New York on 5 December 1997, and which shall remain open for
signature thereafter at Headquarters until its entry into force;
2.
Urges all States to ratify the Convention without delay subsequent to their signatures;
3. Calls upon all States to contribute towards the full realization and effective implementation of the
Convention to advance the care and rehabilitation, and the social and economic reintegration of mine victims,
and mine-awareness programmes, and the removal of anti-personnel mines placed throughout the world and
the assurance of their destruction;
4. Requests the Secretary-General to render the necessary assistance and to provide such services as
may be necessary to fulfil the tasks entrusted to him by the Convention;
5. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-third session an item entitled "Convention
on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their
Destruction".
67th plenary meeting
9 December 1997
1
A/C.1/51/10, annex I.
2
See CD/1467.
3
See The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, vol. 5: 1980 (United Nations publication, Sales No.
E.81.IX.4), appendix VII.
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