The 1925 Geneva Protocol: The League of Nations’ Only Arms Control Agreement
Historical Notes #6 (July 2025), 107pp. The origins of the Geneva Protocol and the history of its negotiation 100 years ago, including an analysis of why Poland insisted on inserting bacteriological weapons in the document. For download. On Wednesday, 17 June 1925, the Conference for the Supervision of the International Traffic in Arms successfully concluded six weeks of negotiations with three agreements. One of them was the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. Of the forty-four participating delegations, twenty-six possessed plenipotentiary power to sign the …
In the long shadow of Halabja
A report from Pugwash Iraq’s first international conference Thirty-seven years ago, on 16 March 1988, Iraq’s military forces hit the Kurdish town of Halabja with artillery rockets and napalm bombs, followed by sustained bombing runs releasing chemical weapons. Between three and five thousand people perished, and many thousands more suffered life-altering injuries. Almost all civilians, an estimated three-quarters of them women and children. Genetic defects resulting from their exposure to mustard and nerve agents meant that even today, their offspring too have inherited these chromosomal anomalies, making them transgenerational victims of chemical warfare. To remember the massacre, Pugwash Iraq organised …
Contributions from the 1925 Geneva Protocol to the BTWC
(Speaking Points at the “50th anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological Weapons Convention” event held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, 26 March 2025) Before the Geneva Protocol Evolution of the ‘poison concept’ Starting in the early 19th century, semantic separation of disease from the poison concept because of evolving medical practice and growing acceptance of the germ theory. Semantic specialisation between poison (toxic substances from nature) and asphyxiating and deleterious gases (products from science and industrialisation). 1899 Hague Peace Conference Semantic bifurcation between poison and asphyxiating gases is a reality with legal consequences. Prohibition of the …
Biological Weapons Disarmament Reaches 50
Fifty years ago, on 26 March 1975, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction entered into force. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) was the first multilateral treaty to outlaw a discrete weaponry category comprehensively. No party to the treaty can develop, produce, otherwise acquire, or retain biological and toxin weapons. Nor can state parties use such weapons in any way or under any circumstances. On its 50th anniversary, 188 states are party to the BTWC. Only nine are on the outside. Four signed the …
The weaponisation of fentanyl
This blog posting is an extract from The Drugs Do Work… [PDF] published in CBRNe World (January 2025). Fentanyl is a powerful analgesic belonging to the class of fully synthetic opioids. Its main application is in the pain management of cancer patients and people recovering from major surgery. Paul Janssen, a Belgian pharmacologist focussing his early laboratory research on antispasmodics, anaesthetics and other pain relief medication, initially synthesised fentanyl in 1959 derived from structure–activity relationship studies of pethidine, a member of the phenylpiperidine class of fully synthetic opioids. Thirty years before, German researchers had first prepared pethidine (also known as …
Aiming for a future verification system for the BTWC
This posting is based on comments made during a panel on ‘The Future of Biological Weapons’ at the annual conference of the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium, held in Brussels on 13 November 2024. Previously 1996 was a year of optimism. Held between the opening for signature (January 1993) and entry into force (April 1997) of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the Fourth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) decided to give the Ad Hoc Group (AHG) a mandate to negotiate a legally binding protocol to equip the BTWC with, among other things, a verification …
Confidence in disarmament: some insights from the treaties banning biological and chemical weapons
Confidence in disarmament: some insights from the treaties banning biological and chemical weapons (Video presentation, delivered in French on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Initiatives pour le désarmement nucléaire (IDN).) Hello everyone! I thank the organisers for inviting me to participate in this symposium to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the IDN. Congratulations! As you listen to my pre-recorded presentation, I am travelling from The Hague, where I attended the annual meeting of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), to Geneva, where I will participate in two and a half weeks of meetings of …
Announcement: BWC Advanced Education Course
[Applications open until 29 September] State Parties, particularly from the Global South, often lack the resources, knowledge, and expertise to participate in the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) diplomatic process more meaningfully. To address this challenge, UNIDIR, Diplo Foundation and FRS are organizing the BWC Advanced Education Course (BWCedu). The course will equip key stakeholders – government officials in capital with responsibilities in BWC implementation, aspiring and active diplomats and life scientists working on BWC issues and biological threats – with the essential knowledge, skills and expertise to actively participate in the BWC diplomatic process and thus contribute to a stronger …
Education for disarmament and non-proliferation
Building a culture of responsibility: education for disarmament and non-proliferation Journal of Strategic Trade Control, Special Issue, Vol. 2 (September 2024) I am honoured to have been invited to contribute to the Special Issue of the Journal of Strategic Trade Control (JoSTC) focussed on Training programs to counter current and emerging biological and chemical proliferation risks: themes, practices, and lessons learnt. Between January 2018 and December 2023, I was involved in the design, development and implementation of a master’s course on dual-use technology transfer control, which was implemented in Central Asia through the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC) and …
Chloropicrin and its alleged use in the Ukrainian war (part 3)
The first instalment of this four-part blog series reviewed the allegations of Russian chemical weapon (CW) use in the Ukrainian war from its start in 2014 until the present. At the meeting of the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in March 2024, the Ukrainian delegate reported 1,060 incidents since the Russian invasion in February 2022. More recently, Ukraine claimed in a note verbale to the OPCW dated 13 June that it had recorded a total of 2,968 cases of Russian use of riot control agents (RCAs) between 15 February 2023 and 25 April …