Category: MIL-OSI

Source: Amnesty International –

To mark Poland’s official withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, Julia Głębocka, Human rights researcher for Amnesty International Poland, reflects on what the return of these indiscriminate weapons means for human rights in Europe.

Not so long ago, in 2020, the European Union was funding mine relief efforts in Lebanon and  hoping to see an anti-personnel mine-free world within five years. HALO Ukraine, an EU-supported organization, had already been making tangible change, removing explosives from Ukrainian soil since 2016. In Chad, the EU-funded project PRODECO, was reintegrating anti-personnel mine victims into society through long-term medical care and rehabilitation, as well as supporting demining efforts.

At the beginning of 2025, all 27 EU member states had been parties to the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines, for over two decades.

But any hope for a more peaceful world was short lived.

While many of us dreamed that one day these indiscriminate weapons would be eradicated, these ghosts of twentieth century warfare are making a comeback. 

In March 2025, the governments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland announced their intention to withdraw jointly from the Ottawa Convention. Finland followed suit with a similar announcement in April 2025.  While the withdrawal has already come into effect for other countries, Poland’s exit entered into force on Friday. The move from multiple EU member states marks a disturbing shift in national security policies undermining the bloc’s credibility on its own adherence to international humanitarian law.

For decades, Brussels has been an avid supporter of the Ottawa Convention. EU strategies on conventional weapons explicitly condemn anti-personnel mines as indiscriminate tools that cause harm far beyond the battlefield. EU funds are routinely channeled into demining operations, victim assistance programmes and international advocacy against anti-personnel mines. And yet, when several of its own members openly abandon this consensus, the EU refused even to utter words of condemnation.

Meanwhile, in my home country, Poland, arms companies wasted no time in seizing on the opportunity that the Ottawa withdrawal presented.

Almost immediately after Poland announced its withdrawal, two major arms-industry companies signaled their readiness to restart anti-personnel mine production. State-owned Bydgoszcz Electromechanical Plant Belma and Niewiadów Polish Military Group JSC declared that they could produce enough mines to secure the entire 800-kilometre eastern border of Poland, with plans to sell any surplus to the Baltic states and Ukraine.

The Polish government justifies its decision in the language of military deterrence. But according to international monitoring organisations, roughly 80 to 85 percent of anti-personnel mine victims worldwide are civilians, many of them children. In Ukraine, where anti-personnel mines have been deployed on a massive scale, their effects extend far beyond military targets. It is worth mentioning that severe mine contamination affected local communities not only in terms of physical safety, but also economically. Ukrainian farmers had to take the initiative and start demining operations themselves and were then reimbursed by their government. Anti-personnel mines do not end wars. They survive them.

Absent, however, from public debate is how the use of these mines might put refugees and migrants at risk.

Julia Głębocka

In 2021-2022 Amnesty International documented Poland’s unlawful pushbacks and ill-treatment of refugees and migrants at its border with Belarus, the adoption of legislation limiting access to the border for humanitarian organizations, and the granting of powers to the Polish Border Guard to reject asylum applications without examination, in breach of international law standards.

On the other side of the border, Amnesty International revealed how Belarusian authorities ruthlessly forced people under duress across the border, in full knowledge of the violence they would face at the hands of Polish border guards on the other side. seeking protection in Europe.

Since then, restrictions to accessing the border were once again re-introduced through the creation of a “buffer/exclusion zone” in June 2024, the effects of which were repeatedly extended and remain active to date. Soon after, the law regulating the use of arms by the Border Guard was amended, limiting their accountability for excessive force.

In a flagrant violation of international law, in March 2025 (at the same time Poland announced its withdrawal from Ottawa) the right to seek asylum at the border was temporarily suspended. Humanitarian organizations warned at the outset that these measures were a slippery slope.   

Amnesty International has serious concerns about how a possible re-introduction of anti-personnel mines compounds risks for refugees and migrants, creating a new horrifying and dangerous reality for people seeking protection in Europe.

These developments along Europe’s northeastern borders are retrograde moves that will only further weaken the global consensus aimed at minimizing civilian harm during armed conflict. Antipersonnel mines’ devasting impact on civilians, sometimes decades after they are deployed, and unexploded anti-personnel landmines can blight whole regions for generations.  

The decision to leave the Convention must be reversed.

Europe once committed itself to leave anti-personnel mines in the past. Allowing them to return uncontested means accepting that some ghosts are welcome after all.

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Source: Amnesty International –

Responding to a landmark judgement by an Athens court which found four individuals linked to spyware maker Intellexa, guilty of unlawful access to private communication systems and data, and of violating privacy and data protection laws, Rebecca White, Amnesty International’s Security Lab Researcher said: 

“Almost four years since the ‘Predatorgate’ scandal hit Greece, we are finally seeing consequences for those involved in the abuse of surveillance technology.

Amnesty International and other organizations have shown time and again that Intellexa’s products have been used to mount brazen attacks against journalists, activists, academics and politicians around the world.  

“We hope this landmark ruling signals the end of the era of impunity for the surveillance industry.  

Rebecca White, Amnesty International’s Security Lab Researcher

“Questions remain about the role of the Greek government which has consistently denied purchasing or using Predator. Transparency is a crucial part of accountability – as is remedy for the many victims of the human rights violations brought about by the unlawful use of this technology.” 
 
Background 

The ‘Predatorgate’ scandal surfaced in March 2022 when journalist Thanasis Koukakis discovered that his phone had  been infected with the highly invasive spyware, Predator and that he had been wiretapped by the Greek National Intelligence Service. Four months later, Nikos Androulakis, leader of the opposition party PASOK-KINAL, also discovered his phone had been targeted with Predator while serving as a Member of the European Parliament.  

Numerous allegations, public outrage, parliamentary inquiries and criminal investigations followed. In July 2024, the Supreme Court cleared the intelligence services and political officials of wrong doing.

On 26 February 2026, the Athens court sentenced four individuals  – Tal Dilian, a former Israeli intelligence officer and founder of Intellexa, Sara Hamou – Dilian’s business partner, Felix Bitzios – a former deputy administrator and shareholder of Intellexa and Yiannis Lavranos – owner of Kriel, the company through which Predator was allegedly procured, to 126 years and eight months in prison each,  though the sentence has been suspended pending an appeal. A prosecutor has asked for their investigation along with eight others for espionage and any other people who maybe involved in the case citing the possibility of collaboration with foreign state forces.  

Source: Greenpeace Statement –

As flood warnings and alerts remain in place across large swathes of Great Britain, Greenpeace warns that over 866,000 homes – equivalent to the total of those in Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield – could be at ‘high’ or ‘very high’ risk from increased levels of severe flooding fuelled by climate change by the year 2080.

Analysis by Geosmart – a company specialising in flood risk assessments – commissioned by Greenpeace, compares the level of flood risk faced by every region and local authority across Britain, should global temperatures increase by 2.4°C above pre-industrial levels. 

A 2.4°C increase by 2080 aligns with the mid-range projection by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which estimates that global temperatures could reach 2.7°C by 2100, based on current levels of emissions. 

At this level of warming, 866,000 homes will face a ‘high’ or ‘very high’ risk of flooding from rivers, the sea, rainfall and groundwater.  This is three and a half times higher than the 253,000 homes facing the same level of risk in 2020, according to the latest available data.

In a 2.4°C world,  over 40% of homes in the South East and East of England, East Midlands and Scotland will be at some risk of flooding. 

Commenting on the analysis, Philip Evans, Greenpeace UK’s senior climate campaigner, said: 

“The economic cost of the storms and floods battering Britain are sky-rocketing. Our data clearly shows more and more homes will face rising flood risk due to extreme weather events. Already, homes in some areas are becoming uninsurable, and in certain cases, insurers are abandoning towns, leaving councils to pick up the tab.”

“Britain is taking a soaking while oil giants like Shell are raking in billions. Taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for Big Oil’s greed. It’s time they were made to foot the bill for the climate breakdown fuelled by their dirty industry. ” 

For more information, contact the Greenpeace UK Press Office – press.uk@greenpeace.org or 020 7865 8255

Notes to editors:

GeoSmart doesn’t just look at whether a house might get flooded, they also calculate the Average Annual Loss. This is a way of predicting how much, on average, a homeowner might have to spend on flood repairs every year over a long period of time. This takes into account both the predicted frequency of flooding events, and the depth of the water. Assuming it costs, on average, £300,000 to rebuild a house from scratch, a resident in a ‘high’ risk area could expect a repair bill over £750 each year, while someone in a ‘very high’ risk area could expect to spend over £1,500 each year on repairs. In reality, these costs would be occasional and could be much higher in a given year.

Regional breakdown of homes at risk of flooding by 2080 based on Geosmart analysis, based on a 2.4°C Global temperature increase.

Region	Total no. of homes	No. of homes at some risk of flooding	% of homes at risk of flooding (%)	No. of homes facing high and very high risk of flooding	% of homes facing high and very high risk of flooding
East Midlands	2,129,261	844,504	40%	53,229	2%
East of England	2,494,238	1,034,776	41%	59,918	2%
North East	1,142,110	297,296	26%	7,595	1%
North West	3,016,848	1,083,923	36%	45,320	2%
Scotland	2,031,012	953,898	47%	386,716	19%
South East	5,298,847	2,271,442	43%	122,484	2%
South West	2,380,727	746,802	31%	65,884	3%
Wales	1,323,654	369,824	28%	71,431	5%
West Midlands	2,321,629	731,875	32%	18,049	1%
Yorkshire & the Humber	2,139,302	808,474	38%	35,459	2%

Source: Amnesty International –

Since December 2025, Israeli authorities have unleashed a series of unlawful measures deliberately designed to dispossess Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to make the annexation of the territory an irreversible reality, Amnesty International said today.   

These decisions represent an unprecedented escalation – in scale and speed – in Israel’s project to expand illegal settlements. They facilitate the takeover of more Palestinian land, authorize a record number of new settlements, expanding existing ones, and formalize registration of land in the West Bank as Israeli state property. While successive Israeli governments have pursued policies aimed at expanding settlements and entrenching occupation and apartheid, the latest measures underscore how the current Israeli government has turbocharged these efforts, in the shadow of the genocide in Gaza.   

“What we are witnessing is a state, led by a Prime Minister wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, openly gloating about its defiance of international law. Despite hundreds of UN resolutions, Advisory Opinions from the International Court of Justice and global condemnation, Israel continues to brazenly expand illegal settlements, entrenching its cruel system of apartheid and destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. 

“The unconditional support of the USA government, combined with the pervasive lack of international accountability for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, decades of crimes under international law linked to its unlawful occupation and its system of apartheid, has further emboldened Israel to escalate its illegal actions. This includes formalizing land grabs with full confidence that it will face no consequences 

The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action. 

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns. 

“The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action. Third states have failed to respect their own legal obligations, refusing to use the tools at their disposal, such as suspension of the EU Israel Association Agreement, to deter Israel from pursuing its unlawful agenda.” 

On 10 December 2025 the Israel Land Authority published a tender for 3,401 housing units in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. The plan seeks to expand the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and create a continuum with occupied East Jerusalem. This would sever the West Bank in two, permanently rupturing urban Palestinian contiguity between Ramallah, occupied East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. Together with the construction of a bypass road which is set to begin this month, this plan will also lead to the forcible transfer of the Palestinian communities living in the area.  

While since the 1990s successive Israeli governments have attempted to implement the E1 plan, it remained largely dormant for decades due to international pressure. Its current advancement with such speed signifies a government that is brazenly pursuing its settlement expansion agenda amidst insufficient international pushback.  

Since its occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, Israel has introduced and developed an oppressive administrative and legal architecture of dispossession and control against Palestinians. The current government has been relentlessly accelerating this project by fast-tracking settlement expansion and land seizures. On 11 December 2025 Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to establish 19 new settlements, bringing the total number approved by the current coalition government to 68 in just three years and the total number of official settlements to about 210. Around 750,000 Israeli settlers currently live illegally in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 

The new settlements include the retroactive “legalization” of outposts built in violation of even Israel’s own domestic laws. Credible media reports indicate at least three of these sites sit upon land from which Palestinian communities, such as Ein Samia and Ras Ein al-Ouja, were recently forcibly transferred following state-backed settler violence. 

According to Peace Now, an Israeli organization monitoring settlement expansion, in 2025 alone, a record 86 outposts were established, primarily “herding” or “farming” outposts” which have significantly contributed to the spike in state-backed settler violence and forcible transfer of Palestinian communities. Protected by the Israeli military and funded by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, the outposts have turned the lives of Palestinian farmers and shepherds, particularly in Area C, into a living hell. Settlers in the outposts aggressively prevent Palestinian shepherds from accessing their grazing land, depriving them of their main livelihood, as well as seizing land by force, vandalizing property, stealing livestock and attacking Palestinians and their homes.  

According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 21 Palestinian communities were fully or partially uprooted in 2025 as a result of state-backed settler violence. A mother of three from Ras Ein al-Ouja, near Jericho, told Amnesty International: “The fear of attacks forced us to put our children to bed with their shoes on, because we might have to flee at any moment.” In January 2026, she and her family were driven out in the freezing cold along with another 122 families; in total more than 600 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from this community.  

A declaration by the Israeli civil administration on 5 January 2026 designating 694 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian towns of Deir Istiya, Bidya and Kafr Thulth in the northern West Bank as “state land”, along with a series of measures to expand control over the West Bank announced by Israel’s security cabinet on 8 February marked a further escalation in Israel’s land grabs. 

These measures include repealing Jordanian legislation still in force to allow Israeli settlers to purchase Palestinian land without oversight increasing Israeli civil administrative control over planning and construction in Hebron City and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, as well as granting Israeli authorities new enforcement powers in archaeological sites and in issues related to water and environment in Areas A and B.  

On 15 February 2026 the Israeli cabinet issued a decision that amounts to annexation under Israeli law.  It allocated over 244 million NIS (Israeli shekels) for the establishment of a government mechanism to facilitate land registration in Area C, transferring the powers of land registration from the civil administration to Israel’s Ministry of Justice.   

Currently, nearly 58% of the land in Area C of the occupied West Bank is unregistered, according to Peace Now. Israel has already seized more than half of that area through state land designations. Palestinians face almost insurmountable hurdles to prove land ownership due to Israel’s archaic interpretation of Ottoman land laws which require Palestinians to provide an array of documents, maps and other records that most Palestinians do not have access to. 

Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it. Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions.

Erika Guevara-Rosas

“Land registration is yet another Israeli euphemism for land grabs and dispossession. Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it. Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions,” Erika Guevara-Rosas said. 

“Israel has totally disregarded its obligations as an Occupying Power towards Palestinian civilians and instead has deliberately and consistently advance its aggressive annexation agenda, in blatant violation of international law, which categorically prohibits annexation and establishment of settlements in occupied territory.  

“These measures are in brazen defiance of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinions of 2004 and 2024, the latter of which unequivocally found Israel’s presence in the OPT to be unlawful. A subsequent UN General Assembly resolution set September 2025 as the deadline to end Israel’s unlawful occupation. Yet instead of complying, Israel has simply invented new ways to violate international law, further entrenching its unlawful occupation and apartheid – while the international community continues, at best, to pay lip service to Palestinians’ rights and taken no effective action.” 

Source: Greenpeace Statement –

SYDNEY/FIJI, Thursday 26 February 2026 — New independent research commissioned by Greenpeace International has revealed that Pacific Island states would receive mere thousands of dollars in payment from deep sea mining per year, placing the region as one of the most affected but worst-off beneficiaries in the world.

The research by legal professor Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka and development economist Dr Ben Tippet reveals that mechanisms proposed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for sharing any future revenues from deep sea mining would leave developing nations with meagre, token payments. Pacific Island nations would receive only USD $46,000 per year in the short term, then USD $241,000 per year in the medium term, averaging out to barely USD $382,000 per year for 28 years – an entire annual income for a nation that is less than some individual CEOs’ salaries. Mining companies would rake in over USD $13.5 billion per year, taking up to 98% of the revenues.

The analysis shows that under a scenario where six deep sea mining sites begin operating in the early 2030s, the revenues that states would actually receive are extraordinarily small. This is in contrast to the clear mandate of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which requires mining to be carried out for the benefit of humankind as a whole.[1] The real beneficiaries, the research shows, would be, yet again, a handful of corporations in the Global North.

Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific Shiva Gounden, said:
“What the Pacific is being promised amounts to little more than scraps. The people of the Pacific would sacrifice the most and receive the least if deep sea mining goes ahead. We are being asked to trade in our spiritual and cultural connection to our oceans, and risk our livelihoods and food sources, for almost nothing in return.

“The deep sea mining industry has manipulated the Pacific and has lied to our people for too long, promising prosperity and jobs that simply do not exist. The wealthy CEOs and deep sea mining companies will pocket the cash while the people of the Pacific see no material benefits. The Pacific will not benefit from deep sea mining, and our sacrifice is too big to allow it to go ahead. The Pacific Ocean is not a commodity, and it is not for sale.”

Using proposals submitted by the ISA’s Finance Committee between 2022 and 2025, the returns to states barely register in national accounts. After administrative costs, institutional expenses, and compensation funds are deducted, little, if anything, remains to distribute [3]. 

Author Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka of the Centro Universitário de Brasília said:

“What’s described as global benefit-sharing based on equity and intergenerational justice increasingly looks like a framework for managing scarcity that would deliver almost no real benefits to anyone other than the deep sea mining industry. The structural limitations of the proposed mechanism would offer little more than symbolic returns to the rest of the world, particularly developing countries lacking technological and financial capacity.”

The ISA will meet in March for its first session of the year. Currently, 40 countries back a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep sea mining. 

Gounden added: “The deep sea belongs to all humankind, and our people take great pride in being the custodians of our Pacific Ocean. Protecting this with everything we have is not only fair and responsible but what we see as our ancestral duty. The only equitable path is to leave the minerals where they are and stop deep sea mining before it starts. 

“The decision on the future of the ocean must be a process that centres the rights and voices of Pacific communities as the traditional custodians. Clearly, deep sea mining will not benefit the Pacific, and the only sensible way forward is a moratorium.”

—ENDS—

Notes

[1] A key condition for governments to permit deep sea mining to start in the international seabed is that it ‘be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole’, particularly developing nations, according to international law (Article 136-140, 148, 150, and 160(2)(g), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kimberley Bernard on +61407 581 404 or [email protected] 

Source: Amnesty International –

Source: Amnesty International –

Responding to Reform UK proposals to repeal the Equality Act, Alba Kapoor, Amnesty International UK’s Racial Justice Lead, said:

“The Equality Act is vital – it is not a slogan or a culture-war talking point. It is the legal guarantee that you cannot be sacked for being pregnant, refused housing because of your race, or harassed at work because you are disabled or gay. That is not ideology. That is basic fairness. Cutting it would not simplify the law – it would strip away protections people rely on in their workplaces, schools and communities, making discrimination easier and accountability harder.

“This law was built over decades by people who experienced discrimination first-hand. Repealing it would not solve the country’s problems. It threatens the rights of millions.

“In uncertain times, the answer is not fewer protections for ordinary people. The Equality Act is a shield against unfairness. Weakening it would send a very clear message about whose rights matter and whose do not.”

Source: Amnesty International –

A world where justice, freedom and equality come first is possible – but only if we fight for it.

Everything from our education, to our ability to live free from torture are rights that we enjoy because the generations that came before us took a stand.

But in the face of the anti-human rights movement, international conflict, and deepening inequality, the human rights we fought for are under threat.

Amnesty International exists so that a world where everyone can live freely, fairly and with dignity is possible.

For over 60 years, Amnesty and our 10 million supporters have been making sure that those in power uphold international law and protect human rights – for individuals, for communities, for us all.