STATE OF PALESTINE JOINS PROTOCOL V ON EXPLOSIVE REMNANTS OF WAR TO THE CONVENTION ON CERTAIN CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS

The State of Palestine, on 29 December 2017, joined Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), becoming the ninety-fourth High Contracting Party to the Protocol.

The State of Palestine is a High Contracting Party to the CCW. It joined the framework Convention on 5 January 2015 along with Protocol I on Non-Detectable Fragments and Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons. It now has joined three of the five Protocols to the CCW.

The President-designate of the 2018 Twelfth Conference of the High Contracting Parties to Protocol V, Ambassador Mouayed Saleh, Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations Office at Geneva, welcomed the news of the State of Palestine’s accession to Protocol V on ERW.

“I warmly welcome the States of Palestine’s accession to CCW Protocol V and encourage more States to consider acceding to the Convention and its Protocols. I also invite those States that have yet to join to participate in the work of the Convention as observers,” Ambassador Saleh stated.

The purpose of the Convention and its Protocols is to ban or restrict the use of specific types of weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately. The Convention attempts to strike a balance between humanitarian concerns and military considerations. Prohibitions or restrictions on the use of specific weapons or weapon systems are the object of the Protocols annexed to the Convention.

Protocol V establishes that States which participate in armed conflict have a responsibility to assist with the clearance of explosive remnants of war resulting from the conflict. The Protocol recognizes the serious post-conflict humanitarian problems caused by ERW, arising from unexploded ordnance and abandoned explosive weapons, and sets out a range of measures to prevent and remedy these problems.


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