UN General Assembly
1996

Denmark, I signed the Treaty this morning. The CTBT will end the qualitative development of nuclear weapons. It is a necessary supplementary component to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It will strengthen progress towards complete global nuclear disarmament. When it comes to conventional weapons, anti- personnel landmines continue to pose a daily, grave threat to people in many parts of the world. They are, at the same time, an unacceptable obstacle to the resettlement of displaced populations. The new landmine Protocol to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons, adopted in May, is an improvement. Denmark will ratify it shortly, without reservations, but we are still far away from the only viable solution to the landmine problem, which is a total, 5 worldwide ban. The Danish Government has decided to renounce unilaterally the use of anti-personnel landmines in the Danish armed forces. We encourage similar decisions by other Governments. Furthermore, the present state of technology for detecting unexploded mines is ineffective. Public and private initiative, ingenuity and funding must be combined