Who controls landmines and drones?

Summary

Inside Geneva: Who Controls Landmines and Drones?

Date: May 12, 2026
Host: Imogen Foulkes (SWI swissinfo.ch)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Inside Geneva explores the changing landscape of warfare, focusing on the control, impact, and regulation of landmines and drones. As some countries consider withdrawing from the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel landmines, experts and practitioners gather in Geneva to discuss the rising dangers of new warfare technologies—drones in particular—and the humanitarian, legal, and political challenges they pose. The episode weaves together firsthand accounts of demining efforts in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Lebanon, alongside critical reflections on international law, funding gaps, and the ongoing global effort to mitigate civilian harm.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Ottawa Convention and Its Legacy

Timestamps: 01:27–04:37

• The Ottawa Convention, adopted in 1997, is hailed as saving tens of thousands of lives by banning anti-personnel landmines. Over 160 countries have signed up, but major powers (US, Russia, China) have not.
• Recent years have seen countries like Poland, Estonia, and Finland signal their departure due to heightened security fears, especially from possible Russian aggression.

Notable Quote:

"When they brought down that gavel in Oslo in September of 1997, that was the most special moment of my life. ... The world had decided that the landmines were bad, had to be banned."
—Jonathan Vseviov (03:08)

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2. Human Impact of Landmines: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Lebanon, Syria

Timestamps: 04:37–10:01

Afghanistan

• Nick Bond (UNAMA): Afghanistan has one of the world’s highest concentrations of landmines. Casualties occur daily, most are children.
• More than 70% of casualties are children; incidents involve children picking up or interacting with explosives.

Notable Quote:

"We have at least one casualty every single day in Afghanistan that's killed or injured and that casualty is most likely to be a child. Over 70% of the casualties are children."
—Nick Bond (07:19)

Ukraine

• Paul Heslop (UN senior advisor): Landmine contamination prevents farming in Ukraine, the "breadbasket of Europe," impacting global food prices.

Notable Quote:

"The absence of productivity is affecting global food prices. So it's not just affecting Ukraine's economy, it's affecting every person in the world."
—Paul Heslop (06:21)

Lebanon & Syria

• Rana Elias (Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining): Decades of conflict, repeated contamination, and underfunding have made the clearance of explosive remnants an ongoing challenge, especially with increased civilian injuries in rural and agricultural areas.

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3. Changing Nature of Warfare: The Rise of Drones

Timestamps: 10:09–14:16

New Weapons, Familiar Problems

• The Ottawa Convention addresses only anti-personnel mines, but warfare has evolved. Drones, including unmanned aerial, ground, and underwater vehicles, deliver explosives and proliferate rapidly.
• Sean Moorhouse (UNDP): Emphasizes the "democratization of the skies," where even civilians can weaponize hobby drones.

Notable Quotes:

"Anybody can pick up a hobby drone, put a warhead on it ... and fly it into a target. So anybody can attack almost any target."
—Sean Moorhouse (11:22)

• Failure rates are high: In 2025, Ukraine produced 2.5 million FPV drones, with 1.75 million failing to detonate—now requiring major cleanup.

Notable Quote:

"They are a hazard in themselves, just like any other form of explosive ordnance."
—Sean Moorhouse (12:03)

Proliferation and Cleanup Challenges

• Drones are harder to neutralize due to improvised designs and fiber optic controls that hinder both farming and demining.
• The issue is global: Weaponized drone attacks were reported in 38 countries in the first quarter of 2026.

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4. National Security versus Humanitarian Law: Estonia’s Exit from the Ottawa Convention

Timestamps: 14:36–18:11, 28:50

• Jonathan Vseviov (Estonian Foreign Ministry) explains the decision to withdraw. The move is defensive, citing Russia’s disregard for international norms.
• Estonia has no immediate plans to actually deploy landmines, but wants to avoid “unilateral disarmament.”

Notable Quotes:

"We did not say yes to landmines. We said no to unilateral disarmament constructs."
—Jonathan Vseviov (14:52)
"We know the cost of these weapon systems. ... We also know that, God forbid, if military force were to be used against us, those weapon systems would be used against us because the Russians don't adhere to these limitations."
—Jonathan Vseviov (15:39)

• Vseviov underscores that post-war Ukraine will require massive reconstruction and cleanup akin to a modern “Marshall Plan”.

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5. The Herculean Task of Demining and Funding Shortfalls

Timestamps: 19:05–21:27

• Funding for demining is declining even as the scale of unexploded ordnance grows, especially with new conflicts and “legacy contamination”.
• Clearance is a Sisyphean task—reconflict and recontamination (as in recent Afghanistan–Pakistan tensions) complicate efforts.

Notable Quote:

"It is a bit of a Sisyphean task at the times... We're trying to find money and get access for teams to go out to check districts which have recently been contaminated. So it is frustrating."
—Nick Bond (19:28)

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6. Legal and Technical Lag: Adapting Laws to New Technologies

Timestamps: 21:45–27:42

• Distinction between weapons is less clear: Pressure plate IEDs function much like banned landmines; drones drop mines or submunitions, bypassing conventional legal categories.
• Paul Heslop suggests a “polluter pays” model for weapons manufacturers: If an oil company pays for cleanup, why not arms makers?
• As weapons become more complex, failure rates leave millions of unexploded munitions posing risks for years.

Notable Quote:

"Why do we not see the weapons manufacturers paying for the cleanup of their weapon systems that were legitimately used... but then failed and then became an indiscriminate tool?"
—Paul Heslop (25:43)

• Current conventions cover only limited devices; there's a gap for drones using AI and automated targeting—international law hasn’t caught up.

Notable Quote:

"When it comes to AI targeting, we completely lack actually the laws to deal with that. ... It is a really, really big problem."
—Sean Moorhouse (25:47)

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7. Cautious Hope: Progress Amid Setbacks

Timestamps: 27:42–31:30

• Despite the backsliding on treaties and proliferation of both mines and drones, there are positive stories.
• Lebanon’s recent decision to join the Ottawa Convention is hailed as a significant achievement and evidence that progress, though challenged, is not halted.

Notable Quotes:

"We should try to work on a more positive narrative... It's a success story that Lebanon is joining. And these are the narratives that we should build our stories also around and make sure these are celebrated."
—Rana Elias (30:03)

• The importance of hope is repeatedly underscored, both for those affected by conflict and for the international community aiming for security, reconstruction, and eventual normalcy.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• "The absence of productivity is affecting global food prices. ... You're paying more for your bread, more for your pasta, more for your fuel. Because of the actual and the perceived mine contamination problem in Ukraine."
  —Paul Heslop, 06:21

• "Ukraine produced 2 1/2 million FPV first person view drones last year and 70% of them failed to go off, which means we now have 1.75 million unexploded drones just from the Ukrainian side."
  —Sean Moorhouse, 12:03

• "We did not say yes to landmines. We said no to unilateral disarmament constructs."
  —Jonathan Vseviov, 14:52

• "Why do we not see the weapons manufacturers paying for the cleanup of their weapon systems that were legitimately used... but then failed and then became an indiscriminate tool?"
  —Paul Heslop, 25:43

• "This is a massive achievement and this is a massive push to the convention itself. ... we should work on a more positive narrative... It's a success story that Lebanon is joining."
  —Rana Elias, 30:03

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Segment Timestamps Guide

• 01:27–04:37: History and legacy of Ottawa Convention
• 04:37–10:01: Frontline demining challenges: Afghanistan, Ukraine, Lebanon, Syria
• 10:09–14:16: Emergence and proliferation of drone warfare
• 14:36–18:11: Estonia explains leaving Ottawa Convention
• 19:05–21:27: Funding and operational challenges of demining
• 21:45–27:42: Legal gaps and technological adaptation
• 27:42–31:30: Looking ahead: Hope and the importance of positive narratives

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Conclusion

Inside Geneva’s episode paints a complex picture of the evolving dangers from landmines and drones, highlighting both immense challenges and hard-won progress. Legislation and international norms lag behind technology, funding is under threat, and states feel caught between humanitarian principles and security needs. Yet, the episode closes with stories of hope—new treaty memberships, the resilience of affected communities, and the continued drive for civilian protection and peace.

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For more in-depth analysis and stories on global humanitarian issues, subscribe to Inside Geneva via SWI swissinfo.ch.

Transcript

[Narrator]

The Swiss Connection Science podcast is back with brand new stories. They're all connected by one overarching the climate challenges we face today and the smart solutions that can help us tackle them. This season, we're diving into the depths of Swiss lakes where invasive mussels are threatening the delicate indigenous ecosystem. We'll also travel to the Arctic to discover how ancient ice can reveal vital clues for pioneering climate research. And we'll explore the critical world of the semiconductor industry, looking at its global importance and Switzerland's potential role within it. All this and more is coming soon in the new season of the Swiss Connection Science Podcast. Swissinfo podcasts.

[Imogen Folkes]

This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen folks and this is a production from Swiss Info, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program

[Sean Moorhouse]

and this is what they're finding here.

[Nick Bond]

We have at least one casualty every single day in Afghanistan that's killed or injured. And that casualty is most likely to be a child.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

Since Russia's full scale invasion began, Ukraine has become one of the most mind controlled countries in the world.

[Paul Heslop]

Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe and the fact that at the moment there are billions of square meters of land that are suspected of being contaminated, that means that land can't be farmed.

[Sean Moorhouse]

This is proliferating well beyond Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are the two leaders in drone technology, but the level of proliferation is scary.

[Interviewer]

Anti personnel mines could soon be buried here in Poland. On Tuesday, Poland and the Baltic states announced their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention which bans the use of these weapons.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

We did not say yes to landmines. We said no to unilateral disarmament constructs.

[Rana Elias]

We heard that Lebanon will be joining the convention. This is a massive achievement and this is a massive push to the convention itself.

[Imogen Folkes]

Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen Fol. Now, regular listeners will know that from time to time we devote a whole podcast to treaties that changed the world. We've talked about the Convention against Torture, the Convention on Enforced Disappearances, and in our very first podcast like this, we looked at the Ottawa Convention on landmines. Adopted in 1997, it is credited with saving tens of thousands of lives more than two decades later. Here's a reminder of what people told me about it.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

We'd had two weeks of very intense negotiations. We were never sure if we were going to get to a successful conclusion or not. And when they brought down that gavel in Oslo In September of 1997, that was the most special moment of my Life.

[Narrator]

We were sitting in our little old

[Imogen Folkes]

dining room in Phnom Penh, and suddenly

[Interviewer]

the news came on the BBC and

[Imogen Folkes]

we started shrieking and yelling and everybody was hopping around or riding around in

[Jonathan Vseviov]

their wheelchairs, just shouting for joy. Personally, I was so happy. The world had decided that the landmines were bad, had to be banned. So that was an incredible moment. So, I mean, I was so, so happy.

[Imogen Folkes]

Campaigners, doctors and landmine survivors were euphoric when the convention was agreed, and they've defended it ever since. More than 160 countries have signed up, though not the big powers like the us, Russia and China. And in the last couple of years, countries such as Poland, Estonia or Finland, especially exposed to possible Russian aggression, have said they will leave the treaty. What might that mean for warfare and for those working to clean up mines and other weapons once a conflict has ended? Here at the UN in Geneva, the International Conference on Mine Action has been taking place. I went along to talk to the experts there.

[Nick Bond]

My name's Nick Bond. I'm the chief of the Mine Action Section in unama, which is the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan.

[Sean Moorhouse]

I'm Sean Morehouse. I work for the United Nations Development Programme as a technical advisor in the Mine Action Team.

[Rana Elias]

I'm Rana. I'm working at the Geneva International center for Humanitarian Demining, supporting states that are affected by the explosive ordinance, which includes a wide range of items.

[Paul Heslop]

My name is Paul Heslop and I am the senior advisor to the head of the UN in Ukraine on mine Action. So everything to do with landmines and bomb disposal,

[Imogen Folkes]

we're on a mission following a demining squad in southern Ukraine. Paul Heslop has decades of experience in mine clearance. Now he's working in Ukraine. Some of the weapons may be new, but those most at risk have stayed the same.

[Paul Heslop]

Probably the most at risk group, other than, you know, the military, are teenage boys who have a tendency to fiddle. They've heard the messaging before again and again. We've just had a project where we've helped the state emergency services by donating virtual reality goggles. And so those virtual reality goggles, they go to schools, high schools, and the kids put them on and they're put through a variety of scenarios in a virtual world to show them how to avoid risk. Now, a teenage boy being shown a short video or a poster, perhaps not so interested. Get the virtual reality goggles on and suddenly you've got a degree of excitement.

[Imogen Folkes]

And Paul adds, while he's trying to stop Ukrainian children being killed by landmines, Just the fact the mines are there at all impacts the entire planet.

[Paul Heslop]

Ukraine is the, is the breadbasket of Europe. And the fact that at the moment there are billions of square meters of land that are suspected of being contaminated, that means that land can't be farmed. That absence of productivity is affecting global food prices. So it's not just affecting Ukraine's economy, it's affecting every person in the world. You're paying more for your bread, more for your pasta, more for your fuel. Because of the actual and the perceived mine contamination problem in Ukraine, Afghanistan has

[Nick Bond]

one of the highest concentrations of landmines in the world.

[Imogen Folkes]

Three months ago, 13 year old Norzia stepped on a landmine while collecting firewood. Today she's walking on new artificial legs. And while Paul is working in a relatively new conflict, Nick Pond is working in Afghanistan. Once called the Forever War. Those who fought for decades over the country have left a lethal legacy that will take years to clear.

[Nick Bond]

We've got the third highest casualty rate in the world in Afghanistan behind Myanmar and Syria. We have at least one casualty every single day in Afghanistan that's killed or injured and that casualty is most likely to be a child. Over 70% of the casualties are children. So with this old program that we've had and experience program that we have, we've got a great opportunity to clear Afghanistan of contamination. So, yes, trying to prevent these casualties, mostly kids, mostly boys playing with things they find while they're tending sheep or their goats in the hills, they'll pick something up and either play with it or put it in the fire or take it home. Even worse, last year in Farah, somebody took something into a house and killed seven members of the family. So yeah, that's my focus really is we've got an incredibly high casualty rate and we've got an opportunity to lower that casualty rate. So that's what it feels like more than clearance.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

There's no peace in Lebanon. A ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel came into effect in November. But the remnants of war keep killing.

[Narrator]

Lebanon has around 17.5 million square meters

[Imogen Folkes]

of land covered in landmines. Like Nick, Rana Elias of the Geneva center for Humanitarian Demining is working in a region where weapons contamination has been a problem for decades. Her native Lebanon.

[Rana Elias]

It's rather grim, I would say, grim outlook and sometimes, I guess, yeah, we probably all, as a sector, we feel this is impossible. Take Lebanon again. I mean, 2006, the conflict, there were massive efforts into clearance clearing, cluster munition, and now it's all over again in terms of destruction in terms of recovery. But I think we have to maintain hope and we have to persist in our work as a whole community, as a whole mine action community per se. It may seem impossible, the challenges are so immense, not only in terms of the scale, in terms of the lack of funding, but also in terms of the civilian harm that has been inflicted in terms of children being killed or maimed. Take Syria, as you say Syria, just from the fall of the previous regime, from December 2024 up until recently. These are, I would say, more than 2,000 injuries civilian, including a high number of children, mostly in rural and agricultural areas. Just to give an idea about the scale, also in Syria.

[Imogen Folkes]

This is one of tens of thousands of potential time bombs lying in Ukraine.

[Sean Moorhouse]

That is the view from the Russian drone.

[Imogen Folkes]

As I said at the start, this conference is about mines. And let's remember the Ottawa Convention deals with only one kind of mine, the anti personnel landmine. But in fact, the experts here are discussing all sorts of weapons. Warfare is changing. Weapons are becoming more autonomous. But some things all weapons have in common. They're not always reliable and they can lie around unexploded for years after a conflict has ended. Sean Moorhouse is a mine specialist with the UN Development Program. He told me what he'd seen.

[Sean Moorhouse]

In Ukraine, we have weaponized drones. There's a massive variety of different types of drones. Everyone thinks about drones as flying unmanned aerial vehicles, but we have ground drones, we have unmanned surface vessels, ships, we have underwater, and all of them can be used to deliver explosives.

[Interviewer]

So what is it then that concerns you in relation to these weapons that brings you to this particular conference?

[Sean Moorhouse]

Well, I think particularly when we take into account the UAVs, what we're seeing is a democratization of the skies in a way. Previously only states had access to sort of aircraft and that sort of thing. And now anybody can pick up a hobby drone, put a warhead on it, an explosive warhead on it, and fly it into a target. So anybody can attack almost any target.

[Interviewer]

So it's the. If we talk about international law and one of the reasons, say the landmine convention was brought in was the concept of no discrimination, lack of discrimination. Is that your concern with drones as well?

[Sean Moorhouse]

Yes. Ukraine produced 2 1/2 million FPV first person view drones last year and 70% of them failed to go off, which means we now have 1.75 million unexploded drones just from the Ukrainian side. So they are a hazard in themselves, just like any other form of explosive ordnance is.

[Interviewer]

So that's going to be a massive cleanup operation as well as with landmines. And there, I suppose, then the skills become similar, the teams become similar.

[Sean Moorhouse]

They do. But the improvised nature of drones means that each one is assemble slightly differently, and that requires a higher level of training to deal with. So it takes longer to train people to deal with this threat. It's a new threat, and we actually need to develop the training that's appropriate.

[Interviewer]

Meanwhile, these things are being used. Failing landing the cleanup job. I mean, you must have seen quite a few. What it takes to decontaminate land. It's going to be huge in Ukraine.

[Sean Moorhouse]

It's an absolutely massive problem. And in addition, because so many drones were being jammed, they started using fiber optic cables to control them, which stops them being jammed. But that leaves just an absolutely horrific number of fiber optic cables which go for 60 km now, littering the landscape. So much so people can't walk across fields, farmers can't farm their fields. We can't do the demining because we can't get through these cables. It's incredible.

[Interviewer]

At the same time, funding for demining is being reduced.

[Sean Moorhouse]

Yes, we are struggling to get anything near the resources we need. And I'm talking about drones. I'm not talking necessarily about drones. In Ukraine, between January and March this year, 38 countries actually had a weaponized drone attack. So this is proliferating well beyond Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are the two leaders in drone technology. Driven by war, as you know, is somewhat inevitable in human history, but the level of proliferation is scary.

[Imogen Folkes]

But while those like Sean, Nick Paul, or Rana, who specialize in weapons decontamination worry about proliferation and yet more decades of cleanup, some countries, as we said at the beginning, are leaving the Ottawa Convention, and it's only right to hear their reasons.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

My name is Jonathan Vseviov. I'm the Secretary General of the Estonian Foreign Ministry.

[Imogen Folkes]

Jonathan Vseviov is number two with Estonian's Foreign Ministry, and he wants the world to understand why his country has taken the difficult decision to leave the Ottawa Convention.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

We did not say yes to landmines. We said no to unilateral disarmament constructs in the context of Russia's ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine, the goal of which has not changed and is not limited to eastern Ukraine or even all of Ukraine, which Putin wants to subjugate to recreate his empire. It's not just Ukraine's fate that will be decided in Ukraine. It's also Europe's, because this idea of empire that Putin pursues, this root cause to this war, which is his inability to accept that the Soviet Union collapsed, is going to shape Europe, not just in the eastern part of the continent, but the idea of Europe, because the idea of empire and the idea of Europe that we've been pursuing just simply don't fit in the same space and time. So this is the reality that's out there. We are as opposed to landmines as anybody else. We know the cost of these weapon systems. We also know that, God forbid, if military force were to be used against us, those weapon systems would be used against us because the Russians don't adhere to, to these limitations. So we are confident in our ability to defend Estonia. We are confident in assessing that currently there is no acute military danger on our borders, partly because, frankly, the Russians are all stuck in Ukraine. But then again, we are fully awake to the enormous challenge that Russia presents, not to us, but to all of Europe, and are not going to entertain unilateral limits to our ability to defend freedom in Estonia.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so you said that unilateral disarmament is a strategy you don't really subscribe to. But on a practical level, would landmines actually help your security? Because some people dispute that.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

So the last time I checked with our defence specialist, with my colleagues over at the Ministry of Defence or the Defence Forces, they had no plans for acquiring landmines, no plans for using landmines for the defense of Estonia. So I trust the military experts, the expertise that's housed within our defense structures. And as of right now, the answer to your question is affirmative. We agree there is no utility at this stage for those weapons systems. It might change tomorrow or in a week's time, and then we'll let the world know. But as of now, there are no plans on actually using the weapons, just

[Interviewer]

broadening also maybe a little bit outside of Estonia. One of the things that the people who work in Demining, and it's far broader now than anti personnel landmines, is the massive, massive cleanup operation that's going to be needed in Ukraine because of unexploded ordnance. These tales from drones who are trying to avoid the radar, that there's thousands and thousands and thousands of acres of land that can't be cultivated.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

Indeed. So when we think about this war, we oftentimes seem to make the mistake of assuming that once the war ends, the problems disappear. It's not going to be the case. You're absolutely right. So even in the best case scenario of us succeeding, let's say today, in pushing Russia to reassess their strategy vis a vis Ukraine and vis a vis Europe, and pull itself back to within its international recognized borders, which is the ultimate goal of our policy. Nothing more but nothing less. Then Ukraine will require enormous assistance from international partners in terms of cleaning up, but also in terms of providing a framework for security for economic development, reconstruction and stabilizing their democracy. In many ways, it's going to be similar to what Western Europe is faced after the end of the Second World War.

[Narrator]

The United nations has sounded the alarm as landmine deaths rise amid funding cuts to demining programs.

[Imogen Folkes]

But who is ready to fund a Marshall Plan these days? In fact, money for mine clearance, like other humanitarian operations, is being cut back. Nick Pond's experience in Afghanistan is a lesson in how challenging and how long term the work can be.

[Nick Bond]

It is a bit of a Sisyphean task at the times, particularly at the moment. There's a conflict ongoing with Pakistan, which has potentially recontaminated 39 districts along the border. And now we're trying to find money and get access for teams to go out to check those districts which have recently been contaminated. So it is frustrating, especially when we see some of the casualties statistics and stories coming in on such a regular basis.

[Interviewer]

What's your thinking? I mean, I know you're also former military, that warfare is changing. We've got a lot of new technology and a lot of the people that I've talked to today have raised the issue of drones posing very similar ethical problems which led to the ban on anti personnel landmines. Do you see that? Maybe you clear the mines, but then there's going to be a whole new. I mean, we have the most advanced militaries in the world racing to get this technology.

[Nick Bond]

Well, what's interesting in Afghanistan and depressing at the same time, is 90% of the casualties in Afghanistan are from explosive remnants of war. So the issue we have is stuff that's lying around. Either things that have been fired and haven't exploded, stuff people have buried when they close down barracks, or stuff that's just been discarded and lost. We had an incident in November last year when a family came across the border from Pakistan to an informal transit centre in Kabul. And because they arrived late at night, the transit centre was closed. So they moved across to a patch of ground in Kabul surrounded by houses, a place where people play cricket all the time. But it happens to be a former Soviet military barracks that was knocked down decades ago. They built a fire to keep warm. It was November and unbeknown to them, There was a rocket fuse underneath the ground under the bush. They were burning, it detonated, and seven children ended up in hospital. So it's that sort of contamination that we have an issue with. In Afghanistan at the moment, 90% of the casualties are from incidents like that. So we don't suffer from the technology of drones at the moment and their impact, because it's not really. There is a little bit involved in the current conflict, but not, not massively.

[Paul Heslop]

Really.

[Nick Bond]

We're on traditional artillery shelling. Our contamination is really legacy contamination. But exactly the same problems apply in that munitions don't always detonate, they certainly don't always land where intended, and they are there for years and years and years to come following the conflict.

[Imogen Folkes]

So although we still have a convention against anti personnel landmines, and we have a convention on explosive remnants of war, which requires parties to a conflict to clean up leftover weapons, there are still vast quantities of unexploded ordnance from Afghanistan to Ukraine, Syria, Myanmar, Bosnia, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Iraq and many other places. Paul Heslop would like us to think differently, not about particular weapons in isolation, but, but what they and those who use them and produce them actually do it.

[Paul Heslop]

Is it easy to argue that, you know, mass produced anti personnel mines are one thing, but you know, again, we saw particularly in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Mali, the use of pressure plate IEDs function very much the same as an anti personnel mine, you know, victim operated. So unfortunately, you know, they've caused a lot of casualties. And again, in an asymmetric environment, that's a challenge when it comes to, again, I think you mentioned drones. I think all of these weapon systems, there are two parts to it is the weapon system being deployed in a combat situation against the legitimate target. And if that is the case, then whether you're using artillery, direct fire, cluster munitions, even remotely deployed explosive devices, and they're against the military target within the rules of war, that is one thing. And if their use is properly documented, you know, the weather conditions, the soil conditions, the wind, and the number of munitions used, the target area, all of that is recorded, then making the cleanup afterwards is relatively straightforward. You know, it just becomes a technical exercise. Where the problems come about is none of that data is gathered. But more importantly is either the weapon system is being used indiscriminately against civilian targets, particularly in urban areas. That is a serious problem. And that is something we're starting to see now as drones in Ukraine have a bigger and bigger payload and longer and longer range. You know, we're now seeing civilian Communities in the west of Ukraine being targeted. Is that a 30 to 50 kilo warhead or is that as a carrier device carrying submunitions that are then indiscriminately scattered over an area? And then those items that are scattered, do they explode on impact? Is there a time delay or is there a victim operated mechanism? You know, all of those fall under treaties. And again, if they're being used in an indiscriminate way on civilian targets, it's a war crime. So, you know, is the weapon being used correctly? How is it that we can have weapon systems where 10% is considered a good fail rate? And you know, in some cases we're seeing some of the North Korean artillery have a 40% fail rate. So if you're firing a thousand shells a day, that's 400 unexploded bombs. After 1500 days, that's 6 million unexploded bombs because of the failure just lying around, because they were not manufactured to the same tolerances that we expect from a fridge or a Toyota. So, you know, we've got these incredibly complex, incredibly expensive weapon systems that fail to function as designed. Now, if that is fired at a target, that is a military target and it functions, it's not a problem because it's gone bang. If it hasn't gone bang, the military target goes off, the conflict comes to an end. Kids come to that area, start playing with it, it's suddenly become an indiscriminate weapon. So why are we not either expecting the weapons manufacturers to build the weapons to a higher quality with better tolerances, or they have to pay a fee for clearing them up? If an oil tanker spills oil through incompetence, the oil company pays for the cleanup. Why do we not see the weapons manufacturers paying for the cleanup of their weapon systems that were legitimately used against a military target but then failed and then became an indiscriminate tool?

[Imogen Folkes]

And Sean Moorhouse too believes our laws are playing catch up.

[Sean Moorhouse]

The Ottawa convention just applies to anti personnel mines, so it's quite specific. However, drones will drop anti personnel mines, they drop 3D printed mines, or they drop old Soviet stocks of what we call the butterfly mine, and they can now deliver them anywhere. So you can have a cargo drone go and lay a minefield overnight in a place where you would never expect to find a minefield. So there is a, there's a technical problem in finding those and clearing them. We have conventions, there's the convention on certain conventional weapons, which would cover items laid by Drones that we would classify as sort of improvised explosive devices or that they function like an anti personnel mine would. So the conventions are there. That covers the drone stuff mostly, but when it comes to AI targeting, we completely lack actually the laws to deal with that. If you have a human in the kill chain, that would be too slow. If you're up against an opponent who does not have the same ethical considerations and does not have a human in the kill chain. So it is a really, really big problem.

[Interviewer]

Are governments listening to the concerns of people like yourself?

[Sean Moorhouse]

To be honest, we have only just started raising these concerns, quite frankly.

[Interviewer]

Do you think we're in the right frame of mind globally to deal with it right now?

[Sean Moorhouse]

Yes, I do. I think it has taken a number of years for the west to wake up to the fact that that drones have revolutionized warfare, but also that they need to deal with them in some way. So I do think states are starting to address the issue now and take it much more seriously than just a year or two ago.

[Imogen Folkes]

All these concerns add up for Paul Heslop, at least to a pretty pessimistic take on where we are.

[Paul Heslop]

Honestly, if you'd said to me five years ago, you'll be working in Ukraine, you know, having never worked in a, outside the Balkans, in the European country before, if you told me that there would be a war in Iran five years ago, I would not have believed that possible. I mean, I spent over 30 years in this sector and for, for 25 years we were really winning the battle. We were clearing way more mines and way more explosive devices than were being used. And in the last five years, we have seen that reversed catastrophically, you know, and it is going to cost many millions, if not billions of dollars to clean up the mess that has been made in five years.

[Imogen Folkes]

These are points Estonia's Jonathan Seviov hears loud and clear. His country's departure from the Landmine Convention may only be temporary. And so far there are no plans to use landmines. Meanwhile, his government remains committed to supporting Ukraine, and that includes a cleanup of weapons.

[Jonathan Vseviov]

Cleanup of ordnance is part of this story. Reconstructing Ukraine is another part of the story. Providing for security, another part of the story. And most importantly, bearing in mind that in big political strategic developments like the one that we're discussing here, hope is amongst the most valuable of resources. Hope today, during war, keeps the Ukrainians afloat. Hope, once war is over, hope that they can one day live a normal European life is going to be at least as important if we as Europe want to play a strategic role in shaping our own future, then we need to be the ones who become comfortable again with concepts like providing hope, defining the future, taking a claim in the sort of future our own continent has.

[Imogen Folkes]

And here at Inside Geneva, we like to provide some hope, too. So we'll leave you with the news that during that mine conference, we heard that while some countries are leaving, Lebanon will be joining the Ottawa Treaty. For Rana, that's a huge and positive step by her home country.

[Rana Elias]

We heard that Lebanon will be joining the convention. This is a massive achievement and this is a massive push to the convention itself. And that's why, in a way, we should perhaps maybe twist the narrative a bit, because when we speak a lot that the convention is under pressure. I think, hasn't it always been under pressure? I think also the way we are framing things, you know, we should try to work on a more positive narrative counter, argue in a way why we need ihl, why we need these norms, why we need protection of civilians. And it's actually more costly. You know, imagine how much money and time and in addition to, of course, the civilian harm inflicted, how much these conflicts are costing. We should invest in education, we should invest in health, we should invest in other sectors and. Exactly. We should invest in lobbying and advocating for more states to join the convention. It is under pressure, but I think, yeah, it's a success story that Lemanon is joining. And these are the narratives that we should build our stories also around and make sure these are celebrated.

[Imogen Folkes]

And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to everyone who took part and to you for listening. A reminder, you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes, how the International Red Cross Unites Prisoners of War with Their Families or why Survivors of Human Rights Violations Turn to the UN In Geneva for Justice. I'm Imogen, folks, thanks again for listening.