Recognizing and Reducing Risks From Ammunition and Explosives (original) (raw)

Munitions and explosives of concern: international governance and applications for the United States

Environmental Sciences Europe, 2014

A combination of 20th century warfare alongside the storage of and frequent testing of munitions by various national armed forces has contributed to a legacy of unexploded ordnance, munitions, and explosives of concern (MEC). The presence of such latent munitions has potentially debilitating or even fatal effects upon a generally unsuspecting stakeholders where communities may be unaware of the risks posed by buried shells, bombs, and other ordnance on both public and privately held properties. As such, various governments have undertaken differing initiatives to assess, mitigate, and manage the risks associated with these munitions. MEC remediation is generally tailored to each nation's unique historical experience with munitions and ordnance and is highly dependent not only on the type and quantity of MEC but also on the existing or proposed land use of the parcel as well. This paper compares the MEC management efforts of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada with regard to their MEC monitoring, detection, and removal methods in order to identify successful policies and procedures that can inform international MEC management.

Worldwide Governmental Efforts to Locate and Destroy Chemical Weapons and Weapons Materials: Minimizing Risk in Transport and Destruction

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2006

The article gives an overview on worldwide efforts to eliminate chemical weapons and facilities for their production in the context of the implementation of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). It highlights the objectives of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the international agency set up in The Hague to implement the CWC, and provides an overview of the present status of implementation of the CWC requirements with respect to chemical weapons (CW) destruction under strict international verification. It addresses new requirements that result from an increased threat that terrorists might attempt to acquire or manufacture CW or related materials. The article provides an overview of risks associated with CW and their elimination, from storage or recovery to destruction. It differentiates between CW in stockpile and old/abandoned CW, and gives an overview on the factors and key processes that risk assessment, management, and communication need to address. This discussion is set in the overall context of the CWC that requires the completion of the destruction of all declared CW stockpiles by 2012 at the latest.

SIPRI Yearbook 2013: armaments, disarmament and international security

Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 2014

STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. THE SIPRI YEARBOOK SIPRI Yearbook 2013 presents a combination of original data in areas such as world military expenditure, international arms transfers, arms production, nuclear forces, armed conflicts and multilateral peace operations with state-of-the-art analysis of important aspects of arms control, peace and international security. The SIPRI Yearbook, which was first published in 1969, is written by both SIPRI researchers and invited outside experts. This booklet summarizes the contents of SIPRI Yearbook 2013 and gives samples of the data and analysis that it contains. CONTENTS Part III. Non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament, 2012 7. Nuclear arms control and non-proliferation 8. Reducing security threats from chemical and biological materials 9. Conventional arms control and military confidence building 10. Dual-use and arms trade controls Annexes

Limitations of the Use of Explosives in armed Conflict

This discourse seeks to ventilate upon the use of explosives what have wide area effects in densely populated areas as a phenomenon that has continued to bedevil the society. In doing so, it attempts to deconstruct the nature of explosives and how they function as well as the adverse effects and suffering they cause to the civilian population in violation of the general principles of the International Humanitarian law. Further, this paper cites a few examples of such violations around the world and goes ahead to invoke the various provisions of the International humanitarian law that guide armed conflict (in this context the extent of protection of civilians against hostilities caused by repugnant war techniques such as explosives in populated areas). The paper then delves deeper into the effectiveness of the International Humanitarian legal framework pointing out various voids and lapses and concludes by suggesting areas that require critical re-examination and review