Team:Edinburgh/mapxmljapan

From 2009.igem.org

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<contacts> <dist> <distName>Japan</distName> <textBox><![CDATA[Japan signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 in Ottawa. In his address to the Signing Conference, then Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi announced his government’s intention to contribute ten billion Japanese yen for mine clearance and victim assistance projects for five years beginning in 1998. Japan ratified the treaty on 30 September 1998, becoming the forty-fifth country to do so. Japan has already passed implementing legislation.

The real commitment by the government of Japan on the landmine issue began when then Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto announced that Japan would host an international conference on antipersonnel landmines. At the Lyon Summit in 1996, he stated Japan’s intention to host “an international conference for the purpose of strengthening international support for the efforts by the United Nations to remove mines.... I also mentioned that we have decided recently to actively support efforts for a total international ban of antipersonnel mines.” Subsequently, the government hosted “Tokyo Conference on Antipersonnel Landmines” in March 1997.

The government’s decision was, for the most part, the result of external pressures, such as the momentum created by the Ottawa Process, the tragic death of Princess Diana and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the ICBL, and had less to do with the role civil society played in Japan. The pressure from outside Japan forced the government to take heed of international opinion.

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