Regulators in action

[M J D Brown]

The list of chemical agents has been extended in other postings, such as

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Hansen" <davidh@spidacom.co.uk>
To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: Regulators in action


> On 21 Feb 2008 at 14:41, Ian Mason wrote:
>
>> > Against a reference to the use of chemical weapons,
>> > the official has written: "Japan in China?""
>>
>> Also skilfully omitting Britain in Kurdish Iraq. (If it was called
>> Iraq at the time)
>
> If we leave aside 1918 and earlier it also omits the following (which
> is not a complete list)
>
> British use of Adamsite against Bolsheviks in 1919
>
> Spanish use of chemical weapons in Morocco in the 1920s
>
> Italian use of mustard gas in what we call Ethiopia in 1936
>
> German use of chemicals against the handicapped, gypsies, homosexuals,
> Jews and so on in the 1930s and 40s
>
> US use of various cemicals in and around Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s
>
> Egyptian use of phosgene and mustard against Yemen in the 1960s
> > Various alleged uses of chemicals by Soviet and Soviet-backed forces 
> > in
> Afghanistan, Laos and Kampucheain the 1970s and 80s.

IIRC the basis of international law banning the use of chemical agents 
lies in the Hague Convention of 1899, whose Declaration II concerned the 
"Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating 
or Deleterious Gases".  Again, if 1970 memories of Staff College 
lectures is accurate, such declarations related to warfare between 
sovereign states and would not have been illegal in the pre-WW2 examples 
of 'colonial policing' included in the above lists.

One could also cite the evidently legal use of hollow point bullets in 
the De Menenzes killing, a class of ammunition forbidden by Declaration 
III of the 1899 Convention covering the "Use of Bullets Which Expand or 
Flatten Easily in the Human Body".

As far as I know the banning of chemical weapons in warfare was 
revisited in the 1907 Hague Convention and renewed in the 1993 Chemical 
Weapons convention.

I make these points, not in a contentious sense, but hoping that one of 
our resident experts will come along to explain the current state of 
international law in this area.