Given widespread adherence to the Geneva Protocol, why is the Chemical Weapons Convention needed?
The Geneva Protocol is the shorthand name for the 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. The Geneva Protocol, which entered into force in 1928 and has over 140 adherent states, bans the use of chemical weapons, but not their development, production, and stockpiling. Accordingly, many countries reserved the right to use chemical weapons in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack. Thus, the Geneva Protocol is essentially a no-first-use agreement. The CWC takes chemical weapons arms control well beyond the limited ban on use, prohibiting not only all use but also the development, production and stockpiling of an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.
