Chemical Weapons

There is wide agreement that using chemical weapons in warfare is abhorrent and must be prohibited. Chemical weapons have nonetheless, even recently, been used. This chapter argues that chemical weapons are prohibited on the basis of both the international humanitarian law (IHL) principles pertaining to means of warfare as well as arm control law. This is evidenced in the almost universally ratified Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 (CWC 1993) and a corresponding rule of customary international law. Biological weapons are similarly prohibited, primarily as a result of their inherent indiscriminate character.