Furthermore, many countries signed the Protocol with reservations permitting them to use chemical weapons against countries that had not joined the Protocol or to respond in kind if attacked with chemical weapons. It only bans the use of chemical and bacteriological (biological) weapons in war. The Geneva Protocol does not, however, prohibit the development, production or possession of chemical weapons. Public dismay at the horrors of chemical warfare spurred post-World War I negotiations on a number of instruments meant to prevent its recurrence, most prominently the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, commonly known as the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Close to a million more people left the battlefields blind, disfigured or with debilitating injuries. By the war’s end, some 124,200 tonnes of chlorine, mustard and other chemical agents had been released, and more than 90,000 soldiers had suffered painful deaths due to exposure to them. A second Hague Convention, in 1907, reiterated earlier bans on employing poison or poisoned weapons.ĭespite these measures, the world witnessed the use of toxic chemicals in warfare to an unprecedented extent during World War I, with the first large-scale attack using chemical weapons taking place at Ieper, Belgium, on 22 April 1915. The contracting parties to the 1899 Hague Convention declared their agreement to ‘abstain from the use of projectiles, the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases’. The chemical disarmament efforts of the twentieth century were rooted in the 1899 Hague Peace Conference. The Brussels Convention prohibited the employment of poison or poisoned weapons, and the use of arms, projectiles or material to cause unnecessary suffering, although the agreement never entered into force.īefore the turn of the nineteenth century, a third agreement came into being. Almost exactly 200 years later, in 1874, the next agreement of this sort was concluded: the Brussels Convention on the Law and Customs of War. The first international agreement limiting the use of chemical weapons dates back to 1675, when France and Germany came to an agreement, signed in Strasbourg, prohibiting the use of poison bullets. Because of this, international efforts to ban chemical weapons took a prominent position in many early disarmament agreements. The PrepCom was also responsible for the transfer of its property, functions and recommendations to the OPCW.Īlthough toxic chemicals had been used as tools of war for thousands of years, with the use of techniques such as poisoned arrows, arsenic smoke, or noxious fumes, their use was long stigmatised by an association with both unnecessary cruelty and unfair play, something beneath the standards of ‘civilised’ battle. Among its major achievements were solutions to several substantive verification issues as well as the setting up of the OPCW Laboratory and Equipment Store, the development of a general training scheme for inspectors and the recruitment of inspector trainees, arrangements relating to the new OPCW headquarters building, and the development of draft documents, such as the Headquarters Agreement, the Staff and Financial Regulations, the Health and Safety Policy and Regulations, the Policy on Confidentiality, and the Media and Public Affairs Policy. The PrepCom was successful in resolving a number of tasks within its mandate, the results of which were reflected in its Final Report. During the previous four years, the PrepCom met 16 times, laying the foundation for the workings of the future Organisation. As required, the Convention entered into force 180 days later, on 29 April 1997. The date of entry into force of the Convention was not determined until 31 October 1996, when Hungary became the 65th state to ratify.
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