Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction

More commonly called the Ottawa Treaty or the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction is an international agreement calling upon nations to restrict or eliminate those antipersonnel land mines that create the greatest hazard for civilians. Land mines that are unlikely to be triggered by a person, such as one that will detonate only when a heavy vehicle, such as a tank drives over it, are widely but not universally considered outside the scope of this treaty; other treaties, such as Protocol V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons‎ may be relevant to antitank mines. Naval mines targeting ships are usually assumed outside this treaty, although other treaties may apply.

Technical details of its coverage involve some nuances. It does not ban all mines, only those that are likely to be hazardous to civilians. Some devices are not designed as land mines but may unintentionally have that effect; see Protocol V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons addresses weapons that leave a long term hazard, typically those intended to detonate immediately, or in a tactically-relevant short interval, but malfunction and remain dangerouse. This latter category is not designed to be a land line, but including delayed-action aircraft bombs; artillery shells, bombs, unguided rockets; "dual-purpose" or antipersonnel cluster submunitions, etc.

An individual weapon may or may not be considered an antipersonnel mine, depending on how it is fuzed and employed. For example, the U.S. M18A1 Claymore is often described as a mine, which, when triggered, sends out a large fan-shaped blast and fragmentation effect. In tactical use, however, it is most often wired to a control unit and triggered only by an operator command, making more like a single-shot piece of artillery than a mine.

Things become especially complex when such a weapon is used only in the night defense of a tactical position, and rigged with a trip wire to detonate if someone, presumably enemy, walks across a trail or towards the defensive position. If that trip wire and M18A1 is removed the next day and take away with the patrol that emplaced it, should it be considered an antipersonnel mine within the scope of this treaty?

The line between land mines and improvised explosive devices (IED) is very blurry; most IEDs are antipersonnel and triggered by some action of the target.. IED are most commonly used by non-national combatants, who would not be signatories to this treaty.