Law Commons^™

The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines, The Role Of International Non-Governmental Organizations And The Idea Of International Civil Society, Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Establishment of the Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines was regarded by many international law scholars, international activists, diplomats and international organization personnel as a defining, 'democratizing' change in the way international law is made. By bringing international NGOs - what is often called 'international civil society' - into the diplomatic and international law-making process, many believe that the Ottawa Convention represented both a democratization of, and a new source of legitimacy for, international law, in part because it was presumably made 'from below'. This article sharply questions whether the Ottawa Convention and the process leading up to it represents and real …