Following consultations with relevant international agencies, international organizations and non-governmental organizations, the States represented at the Ottawa Conference, the ‘Ottawa Group’, have agreed to enhance cooperation and coordination of efforts on the basis of the following concerns and goals with respect to anti-personnel mines:1. a recognition that the extreme humanitarian and socio-economic costs associated with the use of anti-personnel mines requires urgent action on the part of the international community to ban and eliminate this type of weapon;2. a conviction that until such a ban is achieved, States must work to encourage universal adherence to the prohibitions or restrictions on antipersonnel mines as contained in the amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons;