Legal Aspects of the Geneva Protocol of 1925

Abstract

In his policy statement of November 25, 1969, on chemical and biological warfare, President Richard M. Nixon declared that the Administration would ask the Senate for advice and consent to the ratification of the Geneva Protocol of 1925. At the same time, the President reaffirmed the renunciation by the United States of “the first use of lethal chemical weapons” and extended “this renunciation to the first use of incapacitating chemicals.” With regard to biological weapons, the President renounced the use of all biological weapons and methods of warfare, declared that the United States would confine its biological research to defensive measures, and ordered the Defense Department to make recommendations for the “disposal of existing stocks of bacteriological weapons.” On February 14, 1970, the President extended the ban on biological weapons to include toxins.