[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 154 (Thursday, November 6, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11860-S11861]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    GLOBAL LEGAL INFORMATION NETWORK

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to briefly 
discuss a program presently being developed by the Library of Congress.
  The law librarian of Congress, Dr. Rubens Medina, briefed me this 
morning on the efforts the law library has undertaken in recent years 
to put together an international legal database containing the texts of 
laws of some 35 foreign countries. The data base comprises abstracts of 
legal material, the full authentic texts of laws and regulations, and a 
legal thesaurus. It is structured so that the full range of legal 
material including constitutions, laws and regulations, judicial 
decisions, parliamentary debates, and legal miscellanea can be added 
over time as participating countries are able to contribute the 
material. The material is available over the Internet in its entirety 
to officials of those countries who agree to participate in making 
their laws available on the system; in addition, a summary in both 
English and the language of the country of origin will be available to 
the general public.
  This network, called the Global Legal Information Network or GLIN, 
will enable Members of Congress and their staffs and the Library 
staff--as well as our counterparts in participating countries--to 
access the most current and authentic versions of other countries' 
laws, something that is increasingly important in this day and age when 
we deal so frequently with international trade and security issues. 
Congress should acknowledge and salute this effort by its Library, and 
be proud that it was created in and enhanced by the legislative branch 
and that the library is taking the international leadership role on the 
project.
  As additional recognition of the viability and importance of this 
project, and one that interests me as the chairman of the Subcommittee 
on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Dr. Medina informed me that the 
Secretary of State will be proposing at the forthcoming ministerial 
meeting of the 18 APEC nations in Vancouver, BC, next month that each 
APEC country seriously consider joining GLIN and suggesting that an 
informational meeting on GLIN be held early in 1998.
  Mr. President, I am pleased to be involved in some way in this 
monumental project, one in which the joint efforts of the executive and 
legislative branches can capitalize on technological achievements to 
advance international cooperation.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, a Vermonter who is on active duty in the 
U.S. Army contacted me recently to let me know of his support for a ban 
on antipersonnel landmines. He wrote from personal experience, and his 
comments mirrored those I have received from so many other servicemen 
and women who have seen first-hand the danger these weapons pose to our 
own troops.
  Here is what he wrote:

       In the many training exercises in which I have 
     participated, landmines were relatively ineffective in 
     disrupting enemy attacks. Landmines often caused fratricide 
     casualties

[[Page S11861]]

     among one's own troops. The locations of the training 
     landmines were almost never properly recorded. The modern 
     battlefield is simply too fluid and complex to accurately 
     keep track of all the landmines that are emplaced. Under 
     actual combat conditions, these landmines will represent a 
     certain threat to the lives of U.S. personnel.

  Mr. President, compare that to a recent U.S. Army report which 
concluded that landmines contributed to the high rate of fratricide 
during recent exercises at Fort Irwin, CA. Air-dropped landmines, the 
so-called smart mines that the Pentagon claims pose no danger to U.S. 
troops or civilians, were the biggest single cause of friendly-fire 
deaths during mock battles. Of the 82 soldiers that were ``killed'' by 
friendly fire, 45 of them were victims of their own landmines. In one 
incident, an Army unit drove into its own mines dropped by aircraft, 
resulting in what would have been 23 deaths in a real war.
  Now compare that to our experience in Vietnam, where over 64,000 
Americans were killed or injured by landmines. The vast majority of 
those casualties resulted from U.S. mines, or mines containing U.S. 
components. In other words, we made the mines and took them over there, 
and they ended up killing our own people. I wonder how many times 
history has to repeat itself before we get the message.
  A veteran of the Persian Gulf war described the same danger of 
fratricide. He said:

       I spoke to numerous military officers who agreed * * * that 
     they would never employ scatterables (the air-dropped mines) 
     in their area of operations, even if those scatterables were 
     designed to self-destruct after a short period of time. Why? 
     They were simply not prepared to risk the lives of their 
     soldiers on the promise that the technology would work as 
     designed. The fact is that U.S. ground warfare doctrine is 
     `maneuver' warfare doctrine--highly mobile, able to take 
     advantage of the terrain, exploit the weakness of the enemy 
     on the battlefield. A commander who uses anti-personnel 
     mines--except in the most exigent, Alamo-like situation--
     is deliberately reducing his or her battlefield advantage 
     of speed and flexibility.

  Mr. President, despite this, the Pentagon insists that landmines 
protect our troops. It is the same old story. Years ago, they said we 
could not do without biological weapons. They said the same about 
chemical weapons, which they called the most effective weapon history 
has ever known. They said if we gave up Okinawa that we would 
irreparably undermine our security in the Pacific. They fought the 
nuclear test ban. And now they say that landmines, which have 
consistently plagued our own forces in battle, protect American lives.
  I respect our military leaders and I support a defense second to 
none. But I am losing patience with the Pentagon's arguments. They 
simply fly in the face of the evidence. Their latest arguments about 
the need for antipersonnel mines to defend antitank mines wither under 
close scrutiny. Unfortunately, too many people, including some in the 
White House, accept the Pentagon's arguments as gospel, and don't ask 
the hard questions.
  From my off-the-record conversations with Pentagon officials it is 
obvious to me that the real problem is that they do not want to give up 
a weapon, regardless of how marginal its utility or how dangerous it is 
to our own troops, because they are loath to encourage so-called arms 
control activists from trying to ban other weapons that endanger 
civilians. I understand their fear, because unlike a century ago when 
the overwhelming majority of war casualties were soldiers, being a 
soldier in a war today is far safer than being a civilian. The 
overwhelming majority of war casualties today are civilians.
  That is hardly a reason to stay outside of a treaty that offers the 
best hope for riding the world of a weapon that is both inhumane and 
militarily unnecessary. When the Pentagon argues that our ``smart'' 
mines do not cause the humanitarian problem, I ask them to consider 
that as long as we stay outside the treaty we are part of the 
humanitarian problem because there will never be an international ban 
without the United States. And I ask them to consider the evidence. 
Given the danger our own mines pose to our troops, we should shop using 
them for that reason alone.

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