A critical evaluation of how gas, biological and chemical

weapons legislations have shaped nuclear weapons regulations.

Student Number: 701403

Module Title: International Humanitarian Law
Module Code: 7115LAWPL
Module Leader: Bleddyn Davies
Date: 12th January 2015

1
‘A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of
us’

– Margaret Thatcher in a speech during the Soviet Banquet, 1987

2
 1. Introduction
International Humanitarian Law’s (IHL) primary core of rules apply during an armed
conflict with the main focus on protecting persons who do not, or no longer have
participation in hostilities and for also regulating the conduct of those hostilities. The
rules of conduct during an armed conflict have developed significantly since the
Middle Ages and so to have the regulations on weapons that are now deemed
unsuitable for use during armed conflict. IHL has placed limitations on armed
violence in order to reduce and/or prevent human suffering and needless loss of life
and during this essay we will investigate significant legislations and treaties such as
the Leiber Code, St. Petersburg Declaration, Geneva Protocol, Biological and
Chemical weapons conventions, the United Nations Weapons Convention and
Additional Protocol 1 that have combined to place restrictions and outright bans on
the use of gas, biological and chemical weaponry. The essay will then look at the ICJ
advisory report on the legality of the threat and use of nuclear weapons.

2. The Development of Regulations

Like all modern international law, the contemporary law of war has developed a lot
from European history dating back to the middle ages, with Christian Moral and
Natural Law theories of the early modern times making some efforts to apply
limitations to the sufferings of war. These efforts at the time however failed to make
any significant enforcement or regulations during any of the battles of the 16th and 17th
centenary.1 The acknowledgement of a ‘code of honor’ referring to European
chivalry had imposed certain customary limits on permitted forms of combat between
enemies but gave little thought to the protection of civilians. During the Thirty Years
War [1618 – 1648] civilian casualties reached a devastating high when, it is thought,
roughly a 3rd of the population of Europe fell victim to excessive unlimited warfare.2
Hugo Grotius in ‘De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres’ says that ‘Necessaria ad finem
belli’ was the ultimate limit of admissible use of force in war, with Grotius’ work
being looked upon as being a treatise on the laws of war found in natural law theory.3

1
Stefan Oeter, Methods and Means of Combat in Dieter Fleck, The Handbook of International
Humanitarian Law (2nd Ed) [OUP 2008] 119
2
Ibid 119
3
Ibid 119

3
The fundamental ideas that develop the cornerstones of all humanitarian rules on
methods and means of warfare are the protection of civilians, unnecessary suffering,
distinction of civilians and civilian property from military targets and military
necessity, with the aim to only use weapons and methods required to gain a military
advantage and not to exceed this in terms of proportionality. The modern principle of
proportionality notes that it is prohibited to conduct an attack that may be expected to
cause accidental loss to civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to public property
unless there is a legitimate military target that will provide an advantage during
conflict and that this is the sole objective. The size of the attack must be suffice in
gaining this advantage.4 Therefore, targeting civilians is deemed to be unlawful, but
causing injury to civilians or damage to property may not necessarily be so in the
search for the upper hand during warfare as ‘collateral damage’. Distinctions between
military and civilian objects is described in Article 48 of Additional Protocol 1 as an
obligation of all parties in conflict to distinguish between civilian and military objects,
directing military operations only at military objectives.5

The Law of Land Warfare manual states that the ‘right of belligerents to adopt means
of injuring the enemy is not unlimited. The means employed are defiantly restricted
by the international declarations and conventions and by the laws and usages of war.’6
The British Law of war manual adds that humanity and morality need to be taken into
account even during times of armed conflicts,7 implying that just because an army has
the means to defeat their enemy does not mean that that weapon needs to be used.
Also along with this train of thought, civilians are not to constitute as military targets
of attacks and also the cruel killings in combatants by weapons that uselessly
aggravate suffering.8

Further principles of ‘limited warfare’ that where formed in the 19th centaury became
the nucleus to our modern laws of war, with opinion juris, treaties and customary

4
Eve Massingham, Conflict Without Casualties…a note of caution: Non-lethal Weapons and
International humanitarian Law: New Technologies and the Law International Review of the Red
Cross (94) 886 [2012] 676
5
Ibid 676
6
Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 27-10 the Law of Land Warfare (Washington: GPO,
1956) para 33
7
UK Ministry of Defense, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict [OAP 2004] 102
8
Oeter (n. 1) 120

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practices having had a major input on international humanitarian law. The Lieber
Code 1863 was the first attempt to legislate existing rules and customs in relation to
battlefield conduct, which outlined protection to civilians and prisoners during armed
conflicts as well as Article 16 stating that ‘military necessity does not permit the use
of poison in any way’. Within the same year, a conference meeting in Geneva drafted
resolutions for each country to assist the medical services, and to provide for the
neutrality of ambulances and medical personnel, adding further protections to civilian
property.9

3. The St. Petersburg Declaration

However one of the first and most fundamental in relation to weapons prohibitions is
the St. Petersburg declaration of 1868. Up until this point, weapons limitations lay
within customary rules and regulations and none outright banned the use of a specific
piece of weaponry. In ancient times, the laws of Manu would prohibit Hindus from
using poisoned arrows and likewise the Greeks and Romans customarily held rules
against using any form of poison or poisoned weapons.10 During the middle ages, the
Lateran Council of 1132 also declared that the crossbow was an ‘unchristian’
weapon.11 The St. Petersburg Declaration focused mainly on the creation of bullets
developed by the Russian Imperial Army that exploded and shattered upon contact
with both solid and, more importantly, soft surfaces like human bodies. This new
military advancement at the time was seen by the Russians as being no more effective
than shooting and injuring an enemy soldier with an ordinary bullet, except these
exploding bullets left much more damaging injuries. The St. Petersburg was Russia’s
attempt to regulate the use of such weapons by inviting 17 countries to the talks in
which 16 signed and ratified.12

As stated previously, the St. Petersburg Declaration was the first agreement legally
outlawing a particular type of weaponry on humanitarian grounds. However the
preamble drew arguably most of the attention for acknowledging two of the most

9
Howard Levie, History of the law of War on Land [2000] International Review of the Red Cross
(838) < https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/article/other/57jqhg.htm> viewed 9th
December 2014
10
Adam Roberts and Richard Guellf, Documents on the Laws of War (3rd Ed) [OUP 2000] 53
11
Ibid 53
12
Gary Solis, The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War [CUP 2010] 49

5
fundamental basic concepts of warfare, unnecessary suffering of combatants and
military necessity. The preamble stated ‘that the only legitimate object which states
should endeavor to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the
enemy; that for this purpose it is sufficient to disable the greatest possible number of
men; that this object would be exceeded by the employment of arms which uselessly
aggravate the suffering of disabled men, or render their death inevitable; that the
employment of such arms would, therefore, be contrary to the laws of humanity.’ 13
The St. Petersburg agreement also drew on the need to address new weapons by the
way of a legal review outlining that signatory states understand that future
improvement to weapons may affect the principle of IHL and the laws of warfare.14

4. The Hague Peace Conferences

The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 partly focused on the prohibitions of
weaponry due to the technological advancements made by military powers during the
19th century. During the 1899 conventions, 28 nations attended to help develop and
agree upon Declaration IV 2 stating an obligation to abstain from using asphyxiating
gases and projectiles which aim was to diffuse gas. This focus had been derived from
customary law prohibiting poisons and unnecessary suffering.15 This declaration was
seemingly abandoned however as little as 15 years later, as ratifying countries such as
France, Germany and the UK all used gases during the First World War,16 only to be
reaffirmed in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and 1925 Geneva Protocol.17

Also ratified was Declaration IV 3 concerned with the use of ‘expanding bullets’.
These bullets would expand or flatten on contact with human bodies because the
bullet was pierced with incisions or because the bullets casing did not cover the core
entirely. This topic was brought up with ‘Dum-Dum’ bullets in mind.18 Dum-dum
bullets where manufactured in Dum-Dum, near Calcutta in India at a British arsenal
facility and because the casing of these bullets did not cover its core it created a

13
Ibid 50
14
A Guide to the Legal Review of New Weapons, Means and Methods of Warfare: Measures to
Implement Article 36 of Additional Protocol 1 of 1977 ICRC [2006] 88 (864) 932
15
Roberts and Guellf (n. 10) 59
16
Solis (n. 12) 53
17
Roberts and Guellf (n. 10) 59
18
Solis (n. 12) 55

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mushrooming effect upon contact with human flesh.19 During the Hague Peace talks
of 1899, the UK and the USA objected to the banning of expanding bullets. The UK
argued that Dum-Dums where needed by its troops to help control African colonial
conflicts at the time. The UK did not ratify at the time of the 1899 conferences but
would do so however by the 1907 conventions. Part of the 1907 Hague Conventions
focused on the laws and customs of wars on land and the renewal bans of projectiles
and explosives from balloons, which by this time had expired from the 1899
meetings.20 The USA argued the these bullets simply did not cause the suffering to
victims that other states had perceived and still has not ratified either of the Hague
conventions, although the prohibition on extending bullets has now entered into and is
governed by international customary law.21

After the First World War there has been a notable increase in the legislations passed
that attempt to govern the methods and means of armed conflicts, particularly for
gases, biological and chemical weapons. Other treaties such as the 1977 convention
on Military or Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, 1995 Blinding
Laser Weapons Protocol and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions also add to
the regulations of warfare. The 1925 Geneva protocol for the prohibition of the use in
war of asphyxiating, poisonous and other gases and of bacteriological methods of
warfare was held under the guidance of the League of Nations. As mentioned earlier,
the protocol reaffirmed the prohibition on lethal gases but the legal wording of the
treaty terms gave nations the opportunity to use other ‘irritant’ gases such as tear and
herbicides, which were not seen to be in breach of the protocol.22

5. The Biological Weapons Convention

The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972 expands further from the
Geneva Protocol, although it does provide a broad scope on what is actually
prohibited. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition on biological
weapons states that ‘Biological agents include those that depend for their effects on
multiplication within the target organism, and are intended for use in war to cause

19
Ibid 55
20
Roberts and Guellf (n. 10) 67
21
Ibid 59
22
Ibid155

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disease or death in man, animals or plants’.23 Unique to any treaties before it, Article
2 of BWC is a disarmament provision requiring all states any and all lethal biological
weaponry while Article 3 prohibits the transfer, assisting, encouragement to use
biological weaponry.24 Article X requires states to aid in the exchange of equipment,
materials, scientific technology and information for peaceful purposes. One point of
criticism the BWC has come under is that Article X is open to manipulation due to the
difficulty in distinguishing between the exchange of equipment for research purposes,
for example, and the transfer of weapons between parties.25 Also a highlighted
confliction is that the 1925 Geneva Protocol allows signatory parties for biological
retaliation in response to a biological attack while Article 1 of the BWC prohibits
their use under any circumstance, creating and overlapping confliction for states that
are a party to both treaties. The BWC also does not provide for any monitoring
provisions of compliance or weapons verification to check on states.

6. The Chemical Weapons Convention

Biological and chemical weapons were given separate considerations due to the
importance required for regulating their use. The 1993 Convention on the Prohibition
of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons (CWC),
which states that toxic chemical weapons cause death, incapacitation and/or
permanent harm to humans or the environment,26 has so far been ratified by 186 states
and has followed the lead of the BWC with Article 1 placing a complete prohibition
on the use of chemical weapons under any circumstances including retaliation and the
military development and preparation of chemical weapons.27 It also places similar
restrictions that the BWC placed on the transfer of chemical weapons and the
encouragement to use chemical weapons as well as the obligation to aid research to
aid civilization.28 The main differences within this treaty in comparison to the BWC
is that Article 3 states that party nations are required to make declarations for any and

23
World Health Organization, Health Aspects of Chemical and Biological Weapons: Report of a
WHO Group of Consultants [1970] Geneva 12
24
Solis (n. 12) 608
25
Ibid 608
26
OPCW Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and the Use of
Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction 1993 (3) viewed December 16th 2012 <
https://www.opcw.org/index.php?eID=dam_frontend_push&docID=6357>
27
Ibid 2
28
Solis (n. 12) 611

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all chemical weapons that they have, their locations providing an inventory of
quantity. Signatory nations also are required to declare any chemical weapons
transferred or acquired since 1946 with any productions facilities requiring similar
declarations.29 Under the terms of Article X in the CWC, any suspecting state may
request a ‘challenge inspection’, that another nation may be investigated and that they
have an obligation to demonstrate compliance in order to avoid any violations of the
treaty that may result in possible sanctions for non-compliance mentioned in Article
XII.30 The CWC does not however address binary weapons, which remains a concern
as too there potential use.

7. Additional Protocol 1
Since the creation of both the BWC and CWC, the ICRC has indicated that
prohibitions on the uses of biological and chemical weaponry are now part of
international and non-international customary law. Article 36 from the Additional
Protocol 1 created in 1977 to the Geneva Conventions was aimed at the development
of new weapons that could violate the fundamental rules of international law and to
impose requirements on states in determining the lawfulness of a new weapon before
they are developed, acquired or otherwise incorporated into state arsenal.31
Complemented by Article 82, which requires that legal advisors be made available at
all times to ‘advise military commanders of IHL and on the appropriate instructions to
be given to the armed forces so that they will conduct hostilities in strict accordance
with humanitarian law, through legal reviews and planned means and methods of
warfare’.32 However, Article 36 fails to specify how a determination of the legality
of a weapon is to be carried out and decided. And to make the ability to determine
more of a grey area, little has been found in the way of state practice to indicate what
kind of internal procedures should, or could, be established as only a limited number

29
Ibid 612
30
Ibid 613
31
ICRC: Treaties and State Parties to Such Treaties Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions
of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of victims of International Armed Conflicts
(Protocol 1), 8 June 1977 Commentary – New Weapons Article 36 viewed December 23rd 2014 <
https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Comment.xsp?
viewComments=LookUpCOMART&articleUNID=FEB84E9C01DDC926C12563CD0051DAF7>
32
(n. 14) 933

9
of states have been known to have put in place mechanism or procedures to conduct
legal reviews of weapons, leaving a void for custom behaviors on this matter.33

Because a weapon may be deemed as legal, its use during an armed conflict may not
be. For this reason, the material scope of the AP1 Article 36 legal review is therefore
very broad, covering weapons of all types, weapons systems, tactics, operating
procedures and counter measures, and also covers existing weapons that have been
altered since its approval to be used.34 A weapon cannot be assessed in isolation from
the method of warfare by which it is to be used. It follows that the legality of a
weapon does not depend solely on its design or intended purpose, but also on the
manner it could be used on the battlefield. A weapon used in one way may satisfy
Article 36, but it may fail being used in another.35

8. Proportionality, Military Necessity and Nuclear Weapons

To date, there is no legal treaty outright banning the use of nuclear weapons in the
same capacity as the CWC or BWC. However, it should not be viewed that nuclear
weapons are not regulated under international law. Nuclear weapons have been the
subject of intense debate ever since the use of the atom bomb in 1945 by the USA on
the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.36 Nuclear weapons-based treaties
have been created in the way of the Austrian State Treaty 1955, the Antarctic Treaty
1959, the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space
and Under Water 1963 and the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty 1972,37 all of which
ban certain aspects of nuclear power but not the outright deployment of the weapon.
The UN Security Council Resolution 1540 affirms that the proliferation of nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery constitute a threat to
international peace and security, and that parties have a duty regulate and prevent.38
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat

33
Ibid 934
34
Ibid 937
35
Ibid 938
36
Malcolm Shaw, Nuclear Weapons and International Law in Istvan Pogany, Nuclear Weapons
and International Law (Ed) [Avebury 1987] 1
37
Ibid 10
38
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 Adopted by the Security Council at its 4956 th
meeting [2004] viewed 10th December 2014 <
http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/naruhodo/data/pdf/data2-3.pdf>

10
or Use of Nuclear Weapons 1996, addressed the issue of weather or not the use of
nuclear weapons under any circumstances permitted under international law. The
overall view of the court was that although the use of nuclear weapons would
generally be ‘frowned upon’ by the rules international law, it could not conclude that
the use of nuclear weapons the extreme circumstances, such as self-defense, would be
seen a unlawful.39 The court made several acknowledgments to existing legislations
such as Article 2 of the UN Charter, which places a full prohibition on the use of
force, however it was conflicted by Article 51 granting states the right to retaliatory
self-defense with little in the charter specifically referring to weapons that may be
used during warfare.40 The court acknowledged that the right to self-defense is
subject to the conditions of proportionality and military necessity, making reference to
the Nicaragua v. United States of America 1986, when it was stated that ‘there is a
specific role whereby self-defense would warrant only measures, which are
proportional to the armed attack and necessity to respond to it, a rule that has been
well established in international customary law’.41

The proportionality principle may not, in itself, exclude the use of nuclear weapons
for self-defense in all circumstances however, a use of force that is proportionate to
satisfy jus ad bellum must, in order to be lawful, also meet the requirements of the law
applicable to armed conflict, which comprise of particular principles and rules of
humanitarian law.42 It did not seem to the court that the use of nuclear weapons could
be regarded as specifically prohibited on the basis of certain provisions found in the
2nd Hague Convention IV of 1907 and the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The pattern until
now has been for weapons of mass destruction to be declared illegal by concerned
peace organizations and members of governments, however the court did not find any
specific prohibitions naming nuclear weapons in treaties expressing limitations to the
use of certain weapons of mass destruction.43 It was noted that there could not be
39
ILPI Weapons of Mass Destruction Project The ICJ Advisory Opinion [2011] viewed December
10th 2014 < http://nwp.ilpi.org/?p=1218>
40
Summaries of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders of the International Court of Justice
Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: Advisory Opinion [1996] 96 Viewed 4th December
< http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/95/7497.pdf>
41
ICJ Reports of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders case Concerning Military and
Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America) [1986] 94
176
42
(n. 39)
43
(n. 40) 97

11
found a treaty of general prohibition of the same caliber for nuclear weapons as there
is for biological and chemical weapons. The court also failed to find opino juris in
relation to nuclear weapons through customary international law.

Having evaluated international humanitarian law, the court identified cardinal rules
such as the protection of civilians and civilian objects, states must never make
civilians targets of attack and subsequently must never use weapons that are incapable
of distinguishing and there are prohibitions to cause unnecessary suffering to
combatants.44 The court also identified and agreed that states do not have unlimited
choice when it comes to choice of weaponry to use in conflicts. The Martens Clause,
which was first included in Hague Convention II 1899 and also included in AP1 was
also recognized.45 Giving their dissenting opinions, President Bedjaoui and Judge
Weeramentry agree that nuclear weapons pose a threat to international humanitarian
law and to the long-term effects to the environment. Bedjaoui holds the view that self-
defense isn’t an option as using them could place the rest of humanity in danger.46 To
question this, Resolution 1540 says that ‘to take appropriate and effective action
against any threat to international peace and security caused by nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons’47 which may or may not be viewed as a right to self defense. The
current use of preemptive self-defense by the USA could pose issues to international
peace and security. In 2002, the United States released their National Security
Strategy dubbed ‘The Bush Doctrine’ which outlined how their leaders intended to
tackle terrorism and perceived threats from ‘rouge states’. In the wake of 9/11 and the
resulting invasion of Afghanistan, the USA was doing all it could to avoid another
terror attack and believed that Iraq posed a threat because of their failure to comply
with UN weapons inspections, so beginning Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 in a
move, although not officially claimed by the US, but seen widely as pre-emptive self-
defense.48 Although this strategy has not been support by states, in 2007 an Israeli
fighter jet conducted attacks on military buildings targets in Syria, without causing
human casualties that were reportedly believed by Israel to be a Syrian nuclear

44
Ibid 98
45
Ibid 98
46
Ibid 99
47
(n. 38)
48
Christine Grey, International law and the Use of Force (3rd Ed) [OUP 2008] 217

12
complex.49 Further information about this operation was released by the USA in 2008
saying that it had received information about possible nuclear activities in Syria and
that the bombed site was a near-completed nuclear reactor. America claimed that
Israel had taken action as the perceived Syria as having a nuclear threat to their state. 50
The USA also noted, in an apparent reference to the Bush Doctrine, that the USA
‘cannot allow the world’s most dangerous regimes to acquire the worlds most
dangerous weapons.’51

Judge Guillaume admitted however that a state currently has the legal freedom to use
nuclear weapons, if required, and that international law currently cannot deprive a
state of this right, but has the opinion that nuclear weapons can only be proportional
in self-defense when a state is faced with similar weapons as the enemy in accordance
with Article 51 of the Charter.52

Judge Weeramantry voiced that there is never a reason for any state to deploy a
nuclear weapon as they violate the fundamental principles of humanitarian law, in
particular the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1907 Hague regulations,53 declaring, ‘the
use of nuclear weapons contradicts the dignity and worth of the human person and
endangers the human environment’. He explained that international humanitarian law
took a hindsight perspective the brutalities of war and warned that the brutalities of
nuclear conflict would be ‘tenfold’ more devastating. Weeramantry pointed out that
while there are no laws naming and directly outlawing nuclear weaponry, the 1925
Geneva Protocol and the 1907 Hague regulations, which prohibit the use of poisons,
left no room for their legal use as Weeramantry felt that nuclear radiation fell into the
category.54 Judge Koroma noted that nuclear weapons are incapable of distinguishing
civilians from military targets.55 It has been suggested that no nuclear states are
serious about the abolition of these weapons and outlines America and Russia as the

49
Andrew Garwood-Gowers, Israel’s Airstrikes on Syria’s Al-Kibar Facility: A Test Case of the
Doctrine of Pre-emptive Self-Defence? J Conflict Security Law [2011] 16 (2) 267
50
Ibid 268
51
Ibid 268
52
(n. 40) 100
53
Ibid 102
54
Ibid 102
55
Ibid103

13
main ‘nuclear super-powers’.56 Russia and the USA in particular, have maintained a
large nuclear arsenal because they claim that it remains a serious aspect of their
security strategy despite the Bush Sr administration apparently lowering the nuclear
threshold for using the weapons in the post Cold-War era.57

9. Conclusion
Chivalry has taken a new identity within modern international humanitarian law and
still appears to be alive although the means of conflict have become somewhat more
deadly than the poisoned arrows of the Middle Ages. The Lieber Code laid the
foundations for change in regulating means and methods but it was the St. Petersburg
Declaration that made the first significant changes, in turn opening the doors to allow
the Hague Regulations to evolve those changes to prohibitions followed by the 1925
Geneva Protocol. Atrocities during both the world war conflicts gave the globe good
reason to place limitations on our most powerful weapon in gas, biological and
chemical weaponry. The biological and chemical weapons conventions placed clear
restrictions on these weapons and gave all states an obligation to make sure that they
prevent their illegal development and use. A question remains however over the
legality of nuclear weapons and weather they can have the same prohibitions placed
upon them. The court of the ICJ had some agreement that the use of nuclear force was
not necessarily illegal, so long as it was under the guise of self-defense, only if the
retaliatory strike fulfilled the military necessity, distinction and proportionality
requirements expected by humanitarian law. However due to the sheer scale of
destruction of these weapons it is hard to see how they could ever legally fulfill these
requirements. Zhenqiang claims that in order for weapons to be decommissioned a
state must take a leading role, but finding that state may prove difficult as each nation
does not want to voluntarily make themselves weaker than a possible enemy. Another
point is that although we do not currently posses an outright prohibition on the use of
nuclear weapons, aspects of the biological and chemical weapons treaties, as well as

56
Pan Zhenqiang, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: Why not outlaw them first? In George Perkovich and
James Action Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate [Carnegie Endowment 2009] 249
57
Ibid 251

14
law governing the protection of civilians and unnecessary suffering, could be used to
argue against their use, as was suggested during the advisory opinion.

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16