Examining the effectiveness of international landmine regimes. The interplay between design and implementation.

Abstract

Two international treaty frameworks ¿ Amended Protocol II (APII) to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC) ¿ have been developed to prohibit or restrict the use of landmines. However, reflecting a gap in current academic research, there is a lack of knowledge of their effectiveness in supporting the humanitarian goals that underpin both treaties. In order to address gaps in the existing literature, this thesis applies an analytical framework grounded in regime theory to develop new insights into the design, implementation and effectiveness of APII and the APMBC within the broader framework of international humanitarian law (IHL). Two main hypotheses are explored. The first considers the importance for regime effectiveness of the relationship between design and implementation processes. The second analyses the significance for the landmine regimes of regime interplay and nesting within wider IHL and mine action discourses. In addressing these hypotheses, design/implementation interplay, agency dynamics and normative considerations represent key themes that enable us to develop new insights to a specific issue area that also demonstrates important linkages to wider humanitarian, security and developmental agendas.