USA HISTORY

The Geneva Protocol banning the use of chemical and biological weapons for future wars was adopted after WWI in ____

(A) 1906

(B) 1949

(C) 1864

(D) ** 1925

(E) 1929

Concept note-1: -The 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons in war. The Protocol was drawn up and signed at a conference which was held in Geneva under the auspices of the League of Nations from 4 May to 17 June 1925, and it entered into force on 8 February 1928.

Concept note-2: -The 1925 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, commonly known as the 1925 Geneva Protocol, bans the use of chemical and bacteriological (biological) weapons in war.

Concept note-3: -Withdrawn in 1991. Ratified as the Republic of Upper Volta. The Protocol was ratified by the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea in exile in 1983. 13 states (including the depositary France) objected to their ratification, and considered it legally invalid.

Concept note-4: -The United States, however, did not officially ratify the protocol until 1975, although it considered itself bound by the ban throughout the war and abided by the signatories’ call for the protocol to become “part of International Law, binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations.”

Concept note-5: -The international community banned the use of chemical and biological weapons after World War 1 and reinforced the ban in 1972 and 1993 by prohibiting their development, stockpiling and transfer.