Honduras

Mine Ban Policy

Last updated: 18 December 2019

Policy

The Republic of Honduras signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 24 September 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 March 1999. Legislation to enforce the antipersonnel mine prohibition domestically was adopted on 29 June 2000.[1]

Honduras often attends meetings of the treaty, most recently the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018 and the intersessional meetings of the treaty in Geneva in May 2019. Honduras did not provide a statement at either meeting. Honduras did not attend the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. It has not provided an updated Article 7 transparency report since 2007.

Honduras served as co-rapporteur and then co-chair of the Standing Committee on Victim Assistance and Socio-economic Reintegration in 2000–2002.

Honduras is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. It is also party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Import, stockpiling, destruction, and contamination

Honduras is not known to have used, produced, or exported antipersonnel mines. In the past it imported antipersonnel mines from Argentina, Belgium, Israel, Portugal, and the United States.[2]

Honduras completed destruction of its stockpile of 7,441 antipersonnel mines on 2 November 2000. Honduras initially retained 826 antipersonnel mines for training purposes; this number was reduced to 815 in 2005. It is not known if any mines have been consumed during training activities through 2018.

Honduras was contaminated by mines and unexploded ordnance along its borders with El Salvador and Nicaragua, the result of armed conflict in those two countries in the 1980s. Honduras completed its national demining program in 2004.



[1] Decree No. 60-2000, “Law for the Prohibition of Production, Purchase, Sale, Import, Export, Transit, Use, Possession and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and Antihandling Devices or Parts of those Artifacts.” Penal sanctions include imprisonment of three to five years.

[2] Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report, Form H, 30 April 2004.