Actor Daniel Craig on Thursday pushed the UN to do more to rid the world of landmines, saying booby-trapped explosives kill civilians indiscriminately — including children — for years after they are deployed.
Mr Craig, star of James Bond movies and a UN advocate against mines and so-called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), kicked off UN Security Council talks on de-mining former warzones and getting more governments to outlaw the devices.
The virtual meeting came as the US Biden administration was weighing whether to reverse a Trump-era policy to permit the stockpiling and deployment of anti-personnel landmines, despite a global treaty against them.
“The pall of explosive ordinance still hangs over too many parts of our world,” Mr Craig told ministers.
“Legacy landmines remain in the ground. Explosive remnants of war continue to be discovered, all too often by children. And the use of IEDs is spreading to new areas, their design becoming more complex and ubiquitous.”
Mr Craig, whose latest Bond film No Time To Die will reach cinemas in October, praised demining efforts in hotspots such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and Colombia, which made some 560 square kilometres of land safe between 2018 and 2020.
“The removal of these items diminishes the capacity for armed groups to make and deploy IEDs. Clearance has made it possible for people displaced to return home,” said Mr Craig.
“Land has been made safe making way for crops, markets, football pitches and schools, people can live without fearing that their next step may be their last.”
The 15-nation UN body met as the administration of US President Joe Biden was under pressure to scrap former president Donald Trump’s policy of stocking antipersonnel land mines in US arsenals and potentially deploying them on the battlefield.
The Biden administration is reviewing the Trump-era policy shift, which last January flouted an international ban by permitting the use of antipersonnel landmines as long as they could be remotely deactivated.
The UN has long campaigned against landmines. The devices are banned in more than 160 countries and the Ottawa Convention has, since 1997, set standards against their use.
“More than 160 states are party to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the council.
“I call on those that have not yet acceded to the convention to do so without delay. Mine action means working on prevention, to end the threat at its source.”
Nations that have not signed the pact include the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea and North Korea.
“Landmines, IEDs and explosive remnants of war represent the worst of humanity.
But efforts to eradicate them reflect humanity at its best,” Mr Guterres said.
“Let us today commit to intensify our efforts to rid the world of these inhumane threats.”
