Finland notifies UN of withdrawal from landmine ban treaty (www.reuters.com)
from Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 11 Jul 10:54
https://lemmy.world/post/32811862

#world

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Lembot_0004@discuss.online on 11 Jul 10:56 next collapse

Less notifying, more eastern border landmine covering!

Tobberone@slrpnk.net on 11 Jul 13:45 next collapse

Oh, it wasn’t the UN that was the intended recipient of that particular message. That’s why it was sent publicly…

Lembot_0004@discuss.online on 11 Jul 13:53 next collapse

“Intended recipient” doesn’t deserve to be notified. Unless you’re talking about Sweden, but I somehow doubt that :)

TaTTe@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 06:44 collapse

Yes they do. This is a deterrent, not a last-ditch effort to protect ourselves if war breaks out.

Lembot_0004@discuss.online on 12 Jul 07:36 collapse

Mines are NOT “deterrent”. Strong army? Yes. Nuclear weapons? Yes. Mines are a minor nuisance during the war. Makes things uncomfortable, might slow down enemy movement a bit but that’s it. You can’t say to the potential enemy “Forget about attacking – we have mines near the border”.

Deathray5@lemmynsfw.com on 12 Jul 12:32 collapse

Saying "you won’t get anything of value quickly is a deterrent.

Security doesn’t need to be able to completely stop an enemy. It just needs to make it not worth the effort

tal@lemmy.today on 12 Jul 04:12 collapse

You typically need to notify other members of a treaty of your withdrawal, and then there’s some time delay until you’re no longer bound by the terms. You can’t just secretly withdraw, or treaties wouldn’t be very meaningful.

EDIT: Yeah. The submitted article says that it happens in six months from today, and here’s the treaty text on withdrawal:

un.org/…/Doc.44_convention antipersonnel mines.pd…

Article 20

Duration and withdrawal

  1. This Convention shall be of unlimited duration.

  2. Each State Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Convention. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other States Parties, to the Depositary and to the United Nations Security Council. Such instrument of withdrawal shall include a full explanation of the reasons motivating this withdrawal.

  3. Such withdrawal shall only take effect six months after the receipt of the instrument of withdrawal by the Depositary. If, however, on the expiry of that six- month period, the withdrawing State Party is engaged in an armed conflict, the withdrawal shall not take effect before the end of the armed conflict.

  4. The withdrawal of a State Party from this Convention shall not in any way affect the duty of States to continue fulfilling the obligations assumed under any relevant rules of international law.

Tobberone@slrpnk.net on 12 Jul 13:49 next collapse

Absolutely! You are quite right. However, my interpretation of this message is not necessarily “we might reconsider our stance on troop mines”. Rather it is: “we will go to any lengths, even those we find barbaric and cruel, to defend our nation”. Although on the face of it, it is the wording of the agreement that sets the formalities.

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jul 12:51 collapse

Point 3 looks like a pretty obvious poison pill. That is: Russia could conceivably start some sort of grey-zone conflict with Finland before the 6-month period, and thus (per international law) tie Finland’s hands in their use of defensive land mines.

In Finland’s shoes, it’d be prudent to just go “yeah we’re breaking the treaty, and were specifically ignoring Article 20 Section 3 due to urgent national security considerations”.

mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 12 Jul 08:07 collapse

Least bloodthisty eur*pean

Lembot_0004@discuss.online on 12 Jul 08:10 next collapse

bloodthisty

I’m from Ukraine, so I’m armed with common sense and a quite realistic point of view on the situation.

breecher@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jul 09:52 next collapse

So ironic, or perhaps more disingenous, to say that as people try to defend themselves from the Russians.

RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 12 Jul 10:14 next collapse

We don’t wish anyone to forcibly cross that border. Being a defensive and preventative measure is the whole point…

Siegfried@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 12:48 next collapse

1 month troll account? I doubt anyone could be this unhinged from reality

neons@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Jul 18:33 collapse

When did blahaj become the new tankie instance?

parker@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jul 18:45 collapse

said the guy ( @neons@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) from anarchist instance downvoting replies talking down on people in disguise being in favor of others favoring Trump a common single user doesnt define a whole instance, your instance is great but your take… 🤭

neons@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Jul 18:53 collapse

Lmaooo did you just stalk my profile because I downvoted your comment? That’s fucking embarassing my dude!

I downvoted your comment because it gave me strong gatekeeping vibes (realy canadians don’t xyz)

parker@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jul 19:00 collapse

realy canadians don’t xyz

you are just trying to picture a whole group of people to be like you say again. also poorly elaborated and mispelling i wouldnt be surprised if you are from a troll farm

neons@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Jul 19:05 collapse

This is your comment that I downvoted:

oddly one of your downvotes come from a lemmy.ca user @usr@lemmy.ca which is odd any sane Canadian wouldn’t be mad about such question

oddly one of your downvotes come from a lemmy.ca user @usr@lemmy.ca which is odd any sane Canadian wouldn’t be mad about such question

But I am “just trying to picture a whole group of people to be like you say” for disagreeing and downvoting you?

How does this need elaboration? Especially since this is your own comment?

i wouldnt be surprised if you are from a troll farm

Ditto. You’re either a Troll or special.

parker@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jul 19:08 collapse

so you put up my reply but not the comment which i replied to have more context? kudos to trying to picture yourself not being the troll

neons@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Jul 19:14 collapse

Answer my comment or stop. But don’t jump from topic to topic. I won’t play play chess with a pidgeon.

Have a nice day. May you find a poor soul other than mine to annoy.

mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 12 Jul 08:08 next collapse

Are we the baddies?

lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 09:17 next collapse

lemmy is the kind of place where people get offended by defense. and I don’t mean what americans call “defense” but actual defense

[deleted] on 12 Jul 09:41 collapse
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lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 09:49 next collapse

If nobody invades, there’s no problem, no?

[deleted] on 12 Jul 10:20 collapse
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lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 10:33 next collapse

Wrong. If nobody invades, the mines don’t get laid out in the first place.

If it does come to that, the positions are marked mapped and they will get cleaned out. The reason for the treaty was that in some places mines were just spread willy nilly.

I still haven’t seen your explanation for how this is actually an offense, but keep moving that goalpost 👍

[deleted] on 12 Jul 10:38 next collapse
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lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 10:39 collapse

Then what’s the problem?

[deleted] on 12 Jul 10:48 collapse
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lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 11:16 collapse

Mines are cheap and due to geography, they would be a relatively effective defense. For that reason, signing them away with the treaty was called a mistake even back then. Public opinion was about fifty-fifty for a long time and there was never enough political will to seriously consider withdrawal, or even for the opponents to be particularly vocal about it.

So why now? The full scale invasion in Ukraine was a shock that kicked the ball rolling. The topic became hot immediately and there was also a petition that collected signatures very fast. That took some time, but it’s how we got here.

Edit: improved my bad explanation.

[deleted] on 12 Jul 11:25 collapse
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lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 13:18 next collapse

Now you have circled us back to the question you dodged before. You said there’s no invasion. No invasion => No mines. What is the problem?

IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz on 12 Jul 15:55 collapse

As long as there’s no military need for them against an invasion there will be zero mines in the ground. No one will hurt themselves with them, unless some storage worker happens to drop a box on their toes.

As of why now, you can’t pull out of agreement and start to build up manufacturing and logistics if there’s active invasion going on. I hope not a single one of them is ever dug on our Finnish soil, but I’m glad that our military is prepared to use any viable option if they need to.

Madison420@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 17:03 next collapse

Specifically marked minefields were never illegal even with that treaty so…

lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 17:15 collapse

What I mean is marked on a map, so I guess “mapped”. I’m not operating with my native language here.

Madison420@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 17:59 collapse

Yeah I mean the same the only thing that treaty was stopping was ap mines you could always have at mines and those can be rigged light to be jerry rigged ap.

[deleted] on 12 Jul 19:29 collapse
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lihmalahmalehma@suppo.fi on 12 Jul 20:22 next collapse

Well, why the fuck does any country without an immediate conflict coming up maintain an army?

For a moment earlier it sounded like you were concerned with people losing limbs to mines, and there I would agree if mines were planted proactively.

But you’re just offended by defense.

Tanks and goodbye!

RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 13 Jul 09:52 collapse

This guy has never heard of deterrence

RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 13 Jul 09:53 collapse

And how many die in wars if someone invades?

breecher@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jul 09:51 next collapse

And that reason is no longer a viable one.

RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 13 Jul 09:54 collapse

Reasoning is viable in that it sucks for people living there. But so does invasion. If land mines can do deterrence, it definitely is going to act as a net positive.

RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 12 Jul 10:15 next collapse

Offensive landmines killing poor innocent invaders who come in and step on them.

Finland is being so aggressive in this landmine assault.

[deleted] on 12 Jul 19:25 collapse
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RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 12 Jul 19:36 next collapse

There is no invaders

I mean I hope so. There never are until there is

If you wanted to educate us you should post it here, it would work better

ThePyroPython@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 19:59 next collapse

They are banned for the same reason the use of cluster munitions are frowned upon. The problem of being left behind after deployed during war time as they continue to cause horrific civilian casualties which is a huge a big problem for a country trying to recover from war. Particularly if they were deployed inside a country to defend what was then the front line or a fortified location like the outskirts of a town or village.

However if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having an aggressive neighbouring country where you share a large land border who has broken peace treaty promises repeatedly and is repeatedly making threats about invading, then putting landmines along your border is a VERY effective way to deter and slow down an invasion.

I wish that we weren’t in a situation where countries felt it necessary to deploy landmines for border defense but here we are.

Fluke@feddit.uk on 13 Jul 11:42 collapse

Common sense takes are always buried 6 replies deep, I find.

[deleted] on 12 Jul 21:03 collapse
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slaacaa@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 12:43 next collapse

Tankie your for sharing your opinion!

Guilvareux@feddit.uk on 13 Jul 12:12 collapse

Maybe I’m lacking imagination here, but how exactly would… …

“I’m planting landmines on my own land, which would only go off if someone decides to invade”

NOT be defence?

breecher@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jul 09:51 collapse

No, the neighbour invading neighbour which makes landmines necessary in the first place is the baddy in this scenario.

Witchfire@lemmy.world on 12 Jul 16:13 collapse

Canada is gonna need to do this next :(

parker@sh.itjust.works on 12 Jul 19:06 next collapse

so is Mexico if Canada do unless they do it before Canada, they also signed it

Danquebec@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jul 11:00 collapse

We’re going to need a silly amount of mines…