The treaty is scheduled to be signed in December and will go into effect six months after the 40th nation has affixed its representative's signature. This agreement marks the first occasion earth's nations have banned an active weapons system since poison gas was outlawed seventy years ago.

The treaty is said to have gained extra momentum as a result of recent crusading by the late Princess Diana and--in Washington D.C.--by an upstart citizen pressure group ambitiously calling itself The International Committee to Ban Landmines. Signers are required to destroy their current stocks of land mines and to remove all mines they have placed.

They may withdraw from the agreement with six months' warning, unless at that time they are engaged in a war when the six months period has elapsed.

Although fourteen retired U.S. generals, including General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (who took a leading part in the Persian Gulf War) wrote President Clinton calling for speedy passage of the treaty, the president declined to follow their lead, saying that a ban on mines would put American military personnel at risk.

"As Commander and Chief, I will not send our soldiers to defend the freedom of our people and the freedom of others without doing everything we can to make them as secure as possible," he told reporters while flanked by the Pentagon's General John Shalikashvili, and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.

From an unexpected supporter, Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), President Clinton got praise for his decision. "He has made the right decision," said Helms, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, "even though it may be misunderstood in some quarters."

In 1994 President Clinton had called for passage of just such an international ban as he presently opposes. The pace of U.S. reform seemed so slow (over 26,000 citizens--many of which are children--are killed annually) that a tiny group of citizens, The International Committee to Ban Landmines, began a crusade sponsored by 60s-era men and women who had once protested the Vietnam war.

At first, their struggles seemed doomed after the world's governments refused to amend an already existing treaty. Their campaign took wings, however, when Lloyd Axworthy, Canada's Foreign Minister, threw his weight on their side, helping to build a coalition of advocacy groups and a public relations campaign that threatened embarrassment to those nations refusing to attend.

The launching of the anti-land-mine coalition occurred in 1992, thereafter including the Vietnam Veterans of America; Physicians for Human Rights (Boston); Human Rights Watch (New York); Medico International of Germany; Handicap International (France) and the Mines Advisory Grouo of England.