Chemical weaponsSyrian conflict renews focus on chemical weapons

The use of Chemical weapons in Syria has engendered a conversation on what weapons are acceptable in war. Chemical weapons have been used several times in modern history, with Germany recognized as the first country to use such weapons on a mass scale in the 22 April 1915 attack on 6,000 British and French troops at Ypres, Belgium.

The New York Times reports that roughly sixteen million people died and twenty million were wounded during the First World War, yet only about 2 percent of the casualties and fewer than 1 percent of the deaths are estimated to have resulted from chemical warfare. The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned the use of chemical and biological weapons, but not the possession of such weapons. Syria is a signatory of the 1925 treaty, which went into effect in 1928.

Chemical weapons have rarely been used in war. A few notable exceptions include:

• Mussolini’s 1935-36 attack in Abyssinia, now Ethiopia
• The 1940-41 Japanese assault in China, in which Japan used both chemical and biological weapons (the Times notes that unexploded poison gas shells are still being dug up in China, at the expense of the Japanese government)
• Egypt’s 1964-67 war in Yemen
• Iraq’s attack on Iranian positions during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, in which Iraq used both first- and second-generation chemical weapons
• Saddam Hussein’s March 1988 attack on Iraqi Kurds in the town of Halabja, which killed about 5,000 Kurdish  civilians

The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, which went into effect in 1997, bans the use, possession, manufacture, and transfer of chemical weapons. As of June 2013, 189 nations are party to the ruling. Syria, North Korea, South Sudan, Angola, and Egypt are the only countries that have not signed or ratified the ruling.

The growing concern about chemical weapons is in part driven by the recognition that nation-states are no longer the only entities capable of launching chemical attacks.  Militants and terrorists groups could seize chemical weapons weak governments in failed states and launch attacks without claiming responsibility.

Former Senator Richard Lugar explained in a BBC interview why Syria’s use of chemical weapons deserves an urgent response. “We are talking about weapons of mass destruction, we are talking about chemical weapons in particular, which may be the greatest threat to our country of any security risk that we have, much more than another government, for example, or another nation because they can be used by terrorists, by very small groups,” he told the BBC. “The use of these weapons of mass destruction has got to concern us, and concern us to the point that we take action whenever any country crosses that line and uses these weapons as have the Syrians.”