Landmines were originally developed in the era of World War I as a means to stop or to disable battle tanks and/or other military vehicles during that war. While there are landmines specifically manufactured to do that same sort of thing today, landmines have also been developed that unfortunately, in fit and function, are specifically dropped or placed into areas of battles, trails, roads, or enemy territories, not of a purpose to disable military vehicles or tanks, but to disable, indiscriminately, human beings. These landmines are incapable of knowing whether the person stepping on them are friend or foe, child or adult, soldier or civilian, and will when detonated bring great harm upon people in that vicinity, leading to the lost of limbs, crippling, and/or death.
Whether landmines should be banned from all areas of warfare, is a topic that should be engaged, but at a minimum, with today's technology and sophistication, landmines themselves, built by manufacturers throughout the world, should be mandated to have a policy that all landmines so produced must have GPS tracking information within them, that specifies, the exact coordinates of where such a landmine is to within a great deal of accuracy so that when battles and warfare reach their conclusion, that these same said landmines can systematically be located, neutralized, and removed from the field of action.
So too, the responsibility of the removal of these landmines should be the countries and/or organizations that dropped and placed the landmines onto the fields in the first place, all of which should be monitored by a global human rights organization in conjunction with the United Nations, in which specific monetary penalties and/or sanctions should be imposed against recalcitrant countries and organizations who do not make it a point to clean up and verify that the lands are now, once again, safe.
It is indeed fortunate that technology has advanced in which landmines currently placed in areas of conflict throughout the world, that these can now be detected fairly readily by sophisticated drones that can locate such with a precise degree of accuracy. These explosive landmines that have been lying in wait on the ground, for years or even decades, must be disabled and displaced from their current positions, as an act of humanity, and a special tax should be assessed against the manufacturers of such landmines in order to help pay for the efforts to make these lands safe, once again, for human beings.
It isn't right that in times of war and conflict, killing devices are permitted to be left behind that are easily activated by simply stepping on or near them, and will thereby indiscriminately harm or kill those that do so. Those that live in western nations, especially, have a moral obligation to do their absolute best to see that such devices are not left behind, but are systematically removed from the field of action so as to protect the innocent. The fact that millions upon millions of dollars are made in profits from the manufacture of such devices, without taking into account, that there is an even higher obligation to see that they are removed safely from the affected areas, is a clear and present crime against humanity, affecting typically the poor of other nations, while enriching the most technologically advanced nations with blood money.