5.1.4 Environmental weapons : The widespread use of defoliants by the USA during the Vietnam War and growing concern about the environment generally led to calls for regulation of weapons which have a particular effect on the environment. During the Vietnam War there were press reports that the USA was attempting to artificially produce rain in the war zone to flood North Vietnamese supply

doi:10.4324/9781843143802-142

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whether the prohibition on the use of poison covers the use of gas. Gas was used in both World Wars, in Vietnam and in the Iran-Iraq war. The peace treaties concluded after World War One all prohibited the possession by Germany of all ‘asphyxiating, poisonous and other gases and analogous liquids, material and devices’ but it was unclear whether this prohibition applied to all states. The Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare 1925 (the Geneva Gas Protocol) expressly recognised that the prohibition of asphyxiating, poisonous and other gases and analogous liquids, materials and devices was part of international law and extended the prohibition to the use in war of bacteriological weapons. However, problems have remained over the interpretation of the Protocol’s provisions. In particular there has been dispute over whether the prohibition covers only lethal weapons or extends to such things as tear gas and other non-lethal materials such as herbicides. The problem is partly caused by the fact that the French text, which is equally authentic to the English text of the Protocol, refers to ‘similaires’ rather than ‘other’ gases and analogous liquids, etc.