THE LAW OF NON-LETHAL WEAPONS

Abstract

Both international and domestic law fail to make adequate provision for non-lethal weapons. The existing standards were crafted, of course, with other stimuli in mind, and contemporary treaties, statutes, and other legal tools, for the most part have not yet been adapted to the unprecedented stresses and opportunities of the modern capabilities. Still, there are some shreds of law that do regulate the emerging world of NLWs – for better or worse. This chapter explores three topics. First is the international context: treaties and customary rules that govern selected aspects of the weaponry wielded by American and other armed forces. Second (more briefly) is the domestic U.#x00A0;S. statutory law that forecloses one important potential avenue of NLW research and development, regarding biological weapons. Third is the domestic U.#x00A0;S. constitutional and other law regulating police use of weapons, including NLW capabilities, highlighting the evolving jurisprudence in the field of “excessive force.” INTERNATIONAL LAW ON NON-LETHAL WEAPONS Only a few treaties deal directly with NLWs, and they do so in a distinctly incomplete fashion, but those few exemplars are worth exploring. Chemical Weapons Convention . The first noteworthy international agreement relevant to our story is the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (Chemical Weapons Convention or CWC). The CWC is a comprehensive edict against a particularly obnoxious form of combat, and it has attracted 168 parties, reflecting the world's consensus that this hideous scourge is to be avoided absolutely.