NAIROBI, Dec 2: Delegates at a major landmine conference in Nairobi on Thursday called upon states still outside an international ban to join the treaty, and condemned the continued use of the deadly devices that kill or main some 40 people every day.

"Always in the forefront in our minds is the need to universalise the Convention," Canada's Governor General Adrienne Clarkson told delegates attending the first review conference of the Mine Ban Treaty, which came into force in 1999.

Up to now, 144 nations have ratified the Ottawa Convention that bans the use, production, stockpiling and trade of anti-personnel landmines. Some 62 million landmines have been destroyed over recent years.

But some 40 countries, including China, Russia and the United States, have not joined the treaty. The US, which complies with many of the provisions of the convention and is a donor to landmine removal and victim assistance programmes, justifies its policy of not signing the treaty by saying that the convention is limited to anti-personnel mines and does not include anti-tank mines.

Vocal critics of Washington, including Nobel peace laureate Jody Williams, claim that US aversion to world law is more to blame than strategic considerations. -AFP