For what it's worth, most countries, including the US, are parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, of which Protocol II requires a ban on "th

For what it's worth, most countries, including the US, are parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, of which Protocol II requires a ban on "the use of non-self-destructing and non-self-deactivating mines outside fenced, monitored and marked areas"[0]. I think that means that countries have to either use mines which decay over time, as you suggest, or they have to remove the mines themselves from any designated area once the relevant conflict ends. I'm not sure if any signatories have deployed any non-decaying mines since the convention entered into force, though. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Certain_Conventional_Weapons#Protocol_II:_Mines,_Booby_Traps_and_Other_Devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Certain_Conventi...