Geneva Protocol
Year Name Effect
1675 Strasbourg Agreement The first international agreement limiting the use of chemical weapons , in this case , poison bullets
1874 Brussels Convention on the Law and Customs of War Prohibited the employment of poison or poisoned weapons ( Never entered into force . )
1899 1st Peace Conference at the Hague European Nations agreed to abstain from the use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases
1907 2nd Peace Conference at the Hague The Conference added the use of poison or poisoned weapons
1919 Treaty of Versailles Prohibited poison gas in Germany
1922 Treaty relating to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare Failed because France objected to clauses relating to submarine warfare
1925 Geneva Protocol Prohibited the use in war of asphyxiating , poisonous or other gases , and of all analogous liquids , materials or devices and bacteriological methods
1972 Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention No verification mechanism , negotiations for a protocol to make up this lack halted by USA in 2001
1993 Chemical Weapons Convention Comprehensive bans on development , production , stockpiling and use of Chemical Weapons , with destruction timelines
1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Makes it a war crime to employ chemical weapons in international conflicts . ( 2010 amendment extends prohibition to internal conflicts . )
Chemical weapons prohibitions
The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts. It was signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925 and entered into force on 8 February 1928. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 7 September 1929. The Geneva Protocol is a protocol to the Convention for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War signed on the same date, and followed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It prohibits the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices and bacteriological methods of warfare. This is now understood to be a general prohibition on chemical weapons and biological weapons, but has nothing to say about production, storage or transfer. Later treaties did cover these aspects - the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). A number of countries submitted reservations when becoming parties to the Geneva Protocol, declaring that they only regarded the non-use obligations as applying to other parties and that these obligations would cease to apply if the prohibited weapons were used against them. The main elements of the protocol are now considered by many to be part of customary international law.