TOXIC CHEMICALS AND RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES AS REASON OF OCCURRENCE OF ACUTE POISONING IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The chemical is a new threat to mankind safety, vastly exceeding in scale the results of the most modern firearms and representing one of the cheapest forms of terrorism. The first information about terrorism dates from 431-404 years B.C., when ammonium smoke was used in the course of the Peloponness wars. In 1899 as a result of the International Peace Conference Agreement in Hague the use of artillery projectiles equipped with poisoning gas was prohibited. However it is in the XX century during World War I in 1915 that the first large-scale use of poisonous material occurred on the battle site near the city of Ypres, Belgium. During World War I were applied more than 100 000 tons of toxic chemicals, as a result of which perished 90 000 soldiers and more than a million were affected. In 1925 in Geneva a protocol was signed, which forbade the use of bacteriological and chemical weapons, however this was not sufficient for the countries to stop further production, use and accumulation of chemical weapons. In 1972 several countries signed in Geneva a Convention on biological and toxin weapons and undertook the obligation to continue the negotiations for an agreement to forbid chemical weapons also. In 1992 the participants of the Geneva negotiations agreed on a text of the Convention on prohibiting the development, production, accumulation and use of chemical weapons and on their destruction. In 1993 the Convention on chemical weapons was open for signing. During the ceremony for the Convention signing in January in Paris, 130 countries supported the agreement and international disarmament with their signatures. In February of the same year in Hague was founded a Starting-up commission with the task to prepare the coming into effect of the Convention. In spite of these efforts, in 1995 in Japan the “Aum Sinrike” sect made the terrorist act in Tokyo underground by using the chemical weapon sarin. Beside the 5000 affected, 12 persons perished.