Chapter ID: CBB938047823

The Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria: Implications and Consequences (2017)

unapi

Chemical weapons are banned under customary international law, the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The CWC today has achieved near universal adherence; a small number of states, however, remain outside its realm. Syria—until 2013 one of them—was long presumed to possess chemical weapons and in 2012 effectively admitted so. The Syrian civil war always carried the risk that one side or another would use these weapons. Reports to this end began to appear in 2012. In March 2013, following separate requests by Syria and several Western States, the UN Secretary-General began to investigate these allegations. Whilst the investigation team was in Damascus, a large-scale sarin attack was launched on Ghouta, killing hundreds of people. This incident and its subsequent confirmation by the UN team set in motion a series of unprecedented events leading to the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile under strict international control, supported by financial and in-kind assistance by more than 20 countries. But this multilateral effort did not end the use of toxic chemicals in Syria, and OPCW fact-finding missions have since confirmed several cases of chlorine attacks. Also, ISIS/Daesh reportedly has used chemical weapons including chlorine and mustard gas in Syria and Iraq. The paper concludes that it will be important to identify the perpetrators of these attacks and bring them to justice in order to protect the international norm against poison gas.

...More
Included in

Book Bretislav Friedrich; Dieter Hoffmann; Jürgen Renn; Florian Schmaltz; Martin Wolf (2017) One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences. unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB938047823/

Similar Citations

Chapter Jürgen Renn; (2017)
Introduction (/isis/citation/CBB602755515/)

Book National Research Council (U.S.), ; Committee on Confronting Terrorism in Russia, ; Rossiiskaia akademiia nauk, ; National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), ; Carnegie Corporation of New York, ; NetLibrary, Inc., ; (2002)
High-Impact Terrorism (/isis/citation/CBB000321019/)

Chapter Kilshaw, Susie; (2014)
Toxic Soldiers: Chemicals and the Bodies of Gulf War Syndrome Sufferers (/isis/citation/CBB001553204/)

Book Bretislav Friedrich; Dieter Hoffmann; Jürgen Renn; Florian Schmaltz; Martin Wolf; (2017)
One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences (/isis/citation/CBB740792874/)

Book Martini, Edwin A.; (2012)
Agent Orange: History, Science, and the Politics of Uncertainty (/isis/citation/CBB001320939/)

Article Martini, Edwin A.; (2012)
Even We Can't Prevent Forests: The Chemical War in Vietnam and the Illusion of Control (/isis/citation/CBB001320116/)

Article Shanebrook, J. Richard; (2003)
Halting Proliferation of Long-Range Ballistic Missiles (/isis/citation/CBB000502390/)

Book Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab; (2019)
Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution: The Egyptian and Syrian Debates (/isis/citation/CBB348340319/)

Book Lamar, Jake; (2006)
Sixty Years of Science at UNESCO, 1945--2005 (/isis/citation/CBB000775226/)

Book Susan Colbourn; Timothy Andrews Sayle; (2020)
The Nuclear North: Histories of Canada in the Atomic Age (/isis/citation/CBB495561906/)

Chapter Rammer, Gerhard; (2010)
Allied Control of Physics and the Collégial Self-Denazification of the Physicists (/isis/citation/CBB001032741/)

Article Hecht, Gabrielle; (2010)
The Power of Nuclear Things (/isis/citation/CBB000953996/)

Thesis Marie Elizabeth Burks; (2017)
Meditations in an Emergency: Social Scientists and the Problem of Conflict in Cold War America (/isis/citation/CBB962238632/)

Article Heiman, Gadi; (2010)
Diverging Goals: The French and Israeli Pursuit of the Bomb, 1958--1962 (/isis/citation/CBB001030999/)

Article John P. DiMoia; Hiromi Mizuno; (2020)
Eloge: Aaron S. Moore (1972–2019) (/isis/citation/CBB600041340/)

Authors & Contributors
Renn, Jürgen
Martini, Edwin A.
Capozzola, Christopher
Wolf, Martin
Timothy Andrews Sayle
Susan Colbourn
Concepts
Science and war; science and the military
International relations
Chemical weapons
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Science and politics
Biological weapons
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
20th century
Places
United States
Vietnam
Africa
Kurdistan (Iraq)
Damascus
Syria
Institutions
United Nations
Arizona State University
World Health Organization (WHO)
UNESCO
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment