It's from the the Geneva Protocol, here's what Wikipedia says about it:
Use of tear gas in interstate warfare, as with all other chemical weapons, was prohibited by the Geneva Protocol of 1925: it prohibited the use of "asphyxiating gas, or any other kind of gas, liquids, substances or similar materials", a treaty that most states have signed. Police and civilian self-defense use is not banned in the same manner.
>or any other kind of gas, liquids, substances or similar materials
Very gentlemanly, no? Penetrating and even non-penetrating weapons are fine, but no permeating ones please, that's ignoble like ew.
A naive class analysis would say, but of course our glorious peacekeepers would immediately agree to not gas each other right after they figured out the stuff. Otherwise they'd just have all gassed each other to death by now. And then us few poor survivors would be left with nobody to gas us, and the environment probably ruined.
Why the hell do you think that only the rich can deploy chemical weapons?
It's extremely easy to build chemical weapons out of household cleaning supplies. You might even have the ingredients in your house already.
The reason why using them is forbidden by international law is that EVERYONE, rich or poor, looks at a weapon that makes everyone in a city block barf up their lungs and agrees that it should probably be illegal.
That is definitely a less noble way to die than a bullet. Mock it if you want, but you're wrong.
If you wanna do some Marxism, focus on the exemption for domestic use of tear gas. Banning chemical weapons is one of the few good things the world has done.
Well, who else besides an organized murder machine would come to apply chemical weapons in the first place? Some small-timers? That'd already be terrorism and is already not in question here.
If there's an exemption, I'd state it more generally: call it any way you like, but when a state does it, it's just called policy. Peace from the Bloodlands (Snyder 2010).
The political theory definition of "state" is "a group which claims a monopoly on violence in a given territory."
It's 2025 so we expect that violence to be done in accordance with the law and the will of the people, and no matter how much you snark about it that's a big difference.
Of course many terror groups have claimed that mantle for themselves. It's not in question, it's happened multiple times.
