INTERNATIONAL MINE ACTION STANDARDS

Abstract

In 1997, the UN issued the first Humanitarian Demining Standards which had the status of a working document. With the global expansion of mine countermeasures (MC), however, there was an increasing need to further the coordination of activity and standardized procedures. Hence, in 2000, new, amended and renamed standards (International Mine Action Standards or IMAS) came into effect. Since then, they have been regularly updated through various specialized UN bodies and the Geneva based International Centre for Humanitarian Demining. IMAS are increasingly assuming forms prescribed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and are used both as generally applicable standards within MC and as a basis for the detailed national MC standards that define MC in individual countries. They are also used as even more detailed standard operating procedures specifying concrete MC-related work procedures for individual organizations. Although binding in nature, they also allow other modes of operation if required by the local specifics and as long as the principle of safety at work is always taken into consideration. IMAS are divided into 14 sets of topics, each including one or several standards. They are a very useful tool that has unified MC across the world. However, the negative aspect of IMAS is the high cost of its implementation in the field, the upgrading of its contents, the disharmony between certain topics and, partially, its bureaucratic approach. In the future, IMAS will also have to include topics defining and specifying the productivity rate of MC, action against improvised explosive devices and action against the non-explosive threats that are occasionally encountered by MC personnel.