Geneva Protocol

For other uses, see Geneva Protocol (disambiguation).
"Geneva Protocols" redirects here. Not to be confused with Geneva Conventions.

Geneva Protocol
Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare
Drafted17 June 1925[1]
Signed17 June 1925[1]
LocationGeneva[1]
Effective8 February 1928[1]
ConditionRatification by 65 states[2]
Signatories38[1]
Parties146[3]
DepositaryGovernment of France[1]
Full text
Geneva Protocol to Hague Convention at Wikisource

The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts. It was signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925 and entered into force on 8 February 1928. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 7 September 1929.[4] The Geneva Protocol is a protocol to the Convention for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War signed on the same date, and followed the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.

It prohibits the use of "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices" and "bacteriological methods of warfare". This is now understood to be a general prohibition on chemical weapons and biological weapons between state parties, but has nothing to say about production, storage or transfer. Later treaties did cover these aspects – the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

A number of countries submitted reservations when becoming parties to the Geneva Protocol, declaring that they only regarded the non-use obligations as applying to other parties and that these obligations would cease to apply if the prohibited weapons were used against them.[5][6]

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Protocole concernant la prohibition d'emploi à la guerre de gaz asphyxiants, toxiques ou similaires et de moyens bactériologiques, fait à Genève le 17 juin 1925" (in French). Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of France. Archived from the original on 2 December 2008. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
  2. ^ Chemical Weapons Convention, Article 21.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference unoda was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 94, pp. 66–74.
  5. ^ "Disarmament Treaties Database: 1925 Geneva Protocol". United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  6. ^ Beard, J. (2007). "The Shortcomings of Indeterminacy in Arms Control Regimes: The Case of the Biological Weapons Convention". American Journal of International Law. 101(2): 271–321. doi:10.1017/S0002930000030098. p., 277