Dear President Obama,

Despite twenty years of advocacy and aid, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) continues to face a daunting task, particularly as rogue regimes and non-state actors propagate the use of landmines into the twenty-first century. Now is the time to send a clear message to the international community: the United States supports the Mine Ban Treaty.

According to the Landmine Monitor 2011, observers confirmed over 4,000 casualties of explosive remnants of war (ERW) in at least 60 states and areas across the globe. Because of unreliable reporting the actual figure is expected to be "significantly higher". Civilians are disproportionately affected, representing three-quarters of casualties, with children making up nearly half of all civilian casualties. Of course, the humanitarian toll is more difficult to measure but no less devastating, as even the suspected presence of a minefield can be enough to stall development and reconstruction efforts, especially in post-conflict regions of the world.

The U.S. deserves some credit for its own efforts to reduce the proliferation of these destructive weapons, including:

• the halted production of antipersonnel mines
• the elimination of "persistent" landmines from active inventory
• the ongoing moratorium on the export of antipersonnel mines

Given the path of U.S. landmine policy, it only makes sense to join the ban and lend the long-overdue weight of U.S. support to this worthy cause.

These archaic and indiscriminate weapon systems have no place on today's battlefield, replaced by more modern and sophisticated equipment that is safer not only for civilians but also the soldiers who handle them. Lt. General Robert G. Gard Jr. (USA, Ret.) described antipersonnel land mines as "a net liability" to U.S. interests and argued that acceding to the treaty "would be a low-cost, meaningful gesture of diplomatic goodwill with both humanitarian and practical benefits."

It is difficult to argue with this logic. President Obama, it is time for the United States to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty and join the international consensus in both word and deed.