Preventing chemical weapons:arms control and disarmament as the sciences converge

摘要

Just over a century ago,the first Large-scale use of chemical weapons took place on the battlefields of Europe during World War 1,made possible only because of the rapid development of the chemical industry in Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.Thousands of soldiers were killed or injured by chemical weapons,initially with chlorine and subsequently with more toxic chemicals such as phosgene and mustard blister agent.In response,the League of Nations negotiated the 1925 Geneva Protocol,an agreement prohibiting the’first-use’of chemical and biological weapons.However,this agreement has had limited effectiveness,as exemplified by the large-scale use of chemical weapons by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.