Glossary of Terms

Anti-personnel mine - a mine designed to injure or kill one or more persons. It will be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person. Anti-personnel mines are usually detonated when they are stepped on or when a tripwire is disturbed, but they can also be set off by the passage of time or by controlled means.

Anti-tank mine

Abandoned Explosive Ordnance - ordnance that has not been used during an armed conflict, that has been left behind or dumped by a party to an armed conflict, and which is no longer under control of the party that left it behind or dumped it. Abandoned explosive ordnance may or may not have been primed, fused, armed or otherwise prepared for use.

Battle Area Clearance - the systematic and controlled clearance of hazardous areas where the threat is known not to contain mines.

A booby trap is a familiar or harmless object attached to a mine or explosive that is set off if the object is disturbed or a normally safe act performed. Everyday objects, such as a packet of cigarettes, a watch, or a toy can be used as booby traps. Likewise, a weapon may be used as a booby trap by placing it on the edge of a path and attaching it to a tripwire connected to a concealed above-ground mine. People should remember never to touch anything unless they are completely certain that it is safe.

Cluster Bomb Unit - an expendable aircraft store composed of a dispenser and sub-munitions.

A bomb containing and dispensing sub-munitions which may be mines (anti-personnel or anti-tank), penetration (runway cratering) bomblets, fragmentation bomblets, etc.

Humanitarian demining activities which lead to the removal of mine and UXO hazards, including technical survey, mapping, clearance, marking, post-clearance documentation, community mine action liaison and the handover of cleared land. Demining may be carried out by different types of organisations, such as NGOs, commercial companies, national mine action teams or military units. Demining may be emergency-based or developmental.

Explosive Ordnance Disposal - the detection, identification, evaluation, render safe, recovery and disposal of EO. EOD may be undertaken: a) as a routine part of mine clearance operations, upon discovery of the UXO; b) to dispose of UXO discovered outside mined areas (this may be a single UXO, or a larger number inside a specific area); c) to dispose of EO which has become hazardous by deterioration, damage or attempted destruction.

Explosive Remnants of War - also described as Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) and Abandoned Explosive Ordnance (AXO). All ordnance that remains after armed conflict and which has an explosive potential. This includes unexploded ordnance, abandoned ordnance, booby-traps and in some circumstances abandoned or destroyed military vehicles and equipment. In international legal parlance, explosive remnants of war (ERW) do not normally include landmines, as landmines and ERW are dealt with under two distinct international conventions: the Anti-Personnel Mine-Ban Treaty and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (Protocol V).

Improvised Explosive Device - a manually placed explosive device, normally home-made and adapted in some way to kill, injure, damage property or create terror. Mine action does not usually include the removal or destruction of improvised explosive devices. More often security forces, such as the police, deal with such threats.

Improvised Explosive Device Disposal.

Large Loop Metal Detector.

Relies on trained deminers using metal detectors and long thin prodders to locate the mines, which are then destroyed by controlled explosion.

Manual Clearance Teams.

Relies on flails, rollers, vegetation cutters and excavators, often attached to armoured bulldozers, to destroy the mines in the ground. These machines can only be used in certain terrain and are expensive to operate. In most situations they are also not 100% reliable and the work needs to be checked by other techniques.

Munition designed to be placed under, on or near the ground or other surface area and to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person or a vehicle.

The clearance of mines and UXO from a specified area to a pre-defined standard.

Mine Detection Dog(s) - a dog trained and employed to detect mines, UXO and other explosive devices.

Mounted Detection Vehicle.

Mine Risk Education - activities that seek to reduce the risk of injury from mines/ERW by raising awareness and promoting behavioural change, including public information dissemination, education and training, and community mine action liaison. Educational activities aimed at reducing the risk of injury from mines and unexploded ordnance by raising awareness and promoting behavioural change through public information campaigns, education and training, and liaison with communities.

Objectives are to reduce the risk to a level where people can live safely and to recreate an environment where economic and social development can occur free from the constraints imposed by landmine contamination.

An area of ground containing mines laid with or without a pattern.

A complete device charged with explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics, initiating composition, or nuclear, biological or chemical material for use in military operations, including demolitions.

Note: In common usage, munitions (plural) can be military weapons, ammunition and equipment.

PPE - all equipment and clothing designed to provide protection, which is intended to be worn or held by an employee at work and which protects him/her against one or more risks to his/her safety or health.

In the context of mine action, the term refers to a large accumulated stock of EO.

The physical destructive procedure towards a continual reduction of the national stockpile.

Any munition that, to perform its task, separates from a parent munition. Mines or munitions that form part of a CBU, artillery shell or missile payload.

Unexploded ordnance comprises bombs, mortars, grenades, missiles or other devices that fail to detonate on impact but remain volatile and can kill if touched or moved. It may have been fired, dropped, launched or projected yet remains unexploded either through malfunction or design or for any other reason.

Unexploded ordnance are not mines, but ammunition (grenades, mortars, rockets, shells, or bullets) which has not been used or has been fired, but has failed to explode. This does not mean that the UXO is safe. In fact, it is extremely unstable and can be detonated by the slightest touch. Usually UXO causes much more destruction than landmines. The lethal range of the explosion of a common mortar, for example, is 300 metres, while the explosion of a large bomb may be lethal within a range of 1,000 metres or more.