30 November as the Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare was kickstarted in 2005.
It is meant as a tribute to the victims of chemical warfare and to call for the elimination of the threat of chemical weapons, thereby promoting the goals of peace, security, and multilateralism.
The Chemical Weapons Convention was adopted in 1993. It came into force in 1997 “for the sake of all mankind, to exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical weapons.”
The horrific casualties suffered by people in World War I led to the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The Protocol made it illegal to employ chemical weapons but did not ban their production.
Lethal or incapacitating chemical weapons in war include: choking agents such as the chlorine and phosgene gas. They were first employed by the Germans and later by the Allies in World War 1; blood agents such as hydrogen cyanide or cyanogen gas, which block red blood cells from taking up oxygen; blister agents such as sulfur gas and lewisite, also dispensed as a gas, which burn and blister the skin; and nerve agents such as Tabun, Sarin, Soman, and VX, which block the transmission of nerve impulses to the muscles, heart, and diaphram.
Chemical weapons were reportedly used many times afterward, most notably by Italy in Ethiopia (1935–36), by Japan in China (1938–42), by Egypt in Yemen (1966–67), and by Iran and Iraq against each other (1984–88).
The Cold War period saw the Soviet Union and U.S. building up enormous chemical arsenals; these were dismantled under the terms of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention which prohibits all development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, or transfer of such weapons.
It is unfortunate that some countries have not signed the convention. Reports say many are suspected to be pursuing clandestine chemical programs.
Many military forces are said to retaliate in kind to any chemical attack.
A religious cult in Tokyo killed 12 civilians and injured thousands more with Sarin gas in 1995. This event pointed out “the power of chemical agents as weapons of terror as well as the difficulty of protecting civilian populations.
