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Global Landmine Contamination and Clearance: Research Log

A public record of the questions, source selection, rejected evidence, decision criteria, and update conditions behind this article.

Global Landmine Contamination and Clearance: Research Log

Environment

Research Instruction

  • Research target: Global landmine contamination, mine clearance methods, military removal, minefield records, strategic purposes, and related explosive war legacies.
  • Requested output: Explain the global distribution of minefields and modern clearance practice, whether militaries remove mines after conflict, whether placement records survive, why mines are emplaced strategically, and what negative legacies comparable weapons leave.
  • Category and slug: geopolitics / global-landmine-contamination-clearance
  • Related tags: Landmines, Mine Action, International Humanitarian Law, Conflict Legacy
  • Main constraints: Prioritize primary sources, standards, and public datasets; place source notes near important claims; avoid operational emplacement instructions.
  • Article file reviewed: articles/report/global-landmine-contamination-clearance/en/index.mdx
  • Completion condition: Keep Japanese article, English article, and both research logs synchronized, then verify publication routes and build output.

Research Questions

  1. Where are minefields distributed globally?
  2. How does modern humanitarian clearance work?
  3. Do military forces remove mines after war or conflict ends?
  4. Do minefield placement records survive?
  5. What strategic purposes do mines serve?
  6. What broader conflict legacies are similar to landmine contamination?

Main Sources

  • Landmine Monitor 2025: used for contaminated states and areas, country contamination scale, 2024 land release, casualties, and recent use.
  • Mine Action Review, Clearing the Mines 2025: used for country-level clearance progress, Article 5 implementation, and estimation problems such as Bosnia and Herzegovina.
  • Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention: used for Article 5 clearance duties and Article 7 transparency reporting.
  • CCW Amended Protocol II: used for recording, civilian protection, post-hostilities information sharing, and removal duties.
  • IMAS 07.11, 08.10, 08.20, 09.10, and 09.50: used for land release, non-technical survey, technical survey, clearance, and mechanical land release.
  • GICHD, The Role of the Military in Mine Action: used for military participation, the difference between military and humanitarian clearance, and the limits of minefield records.
  • Cluster Munition Monitor 2025 and the Lao PDR country profile: used for related conflict legacies from cluster munition remnants.

Judgment Notes

The article uses Landmine Monitor 2025’s count of at least 57 contaminated states and other areas as the baseline. Country figures can change as survey advances, so Ukraine is explicitly treated as an uncertain wartime estimate rather than a settled contamination figure.

The clearance section is organized around the IMAS land release concept rather than a list of tools. This avoids the misleading impression that clearance is simply manual excavation. The 2024 pattern, where most land release by area came through non-technical survey, is central to the explanation.

The military removal section avoids a yes-or-no answer. It treats post-conflict mine removal as a division of labor among treaty obligations, ceasefire arrangements, national mine action authorities, military engineers, NGOs, and commercial clearance firms. The Falkland Islands and Bosnia and Herzegovina examples show why records are useful but not sufficient.

The strategic-purpose section uses the doctrinal terms disrupt, turn, fix, and block, but does not describe emplacement procedures. The focus is how military delay becomes civilian and economic delay after conflict.

Limits

Contamination area can rise or fall as survey improves. A rise may reflect newly identified legacy contamination rather than new mine use.

Casualty data is prone to underreporting, especially in active conflict zones where surveillance systems are degraded.

The term landmine is often mixed with antivehicle mines, improvised mines, booby traps, explosive remnants of war, and cluster munition remnants. The article focuses on antipersonnel mines and humanitarian mine action, while treating ERW and cluster munition remnants as related legacies.