Unit 4: Means and Methods of Warfare
4.1 Prohibited Means of Warfare
4.1.1 Expanding Bullets
The dum-dum line: the bullets that expand-or-flatten in the body (the 1899 Hague Declaration) — the superfluous-injury logic (the wounds’ aggravation without military gain).
4.1.2 Poison and Poisoned Weapons
The oldest prohibition (the Hague’s line): the poisoning’s absolute bar — the asphyxiating-and-delousing faces; the biological-and-chemical extensions (4.1.3-4.1.4).
4.1.3 Chemical Weapons
The 1925 Geneva Protocol (the gas’s prohibition after the WWI’s horrors — Nepal a party, the verified record) → the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (the elimination regime: the destruction, the OPCW’s verification; the Syria’s use-and-attribution era; the Novichok faces); the riot-control-and-herbicide questions.
4.1.4 Biological Weapons
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (the development-production-stockpiling bar — the verification’s absence debate); the 1925 Protocol’s overlap; the pandemic-era biosecurity faces.
4.1.5 Certain Conventional Weapons
The 1980 CCW (the “inhumane weapons” convention) + its protocols: the non-detectable fragments; the mines-booby-traps (Protocol II); the incendiary weapons (Protocol III — the civilian concentrations’ bar); the blinding lasers (Protocol IV — the pre-emptive ban’s pride); the ERW protocol (4.1.7).
4.1.6 Anti-Personnel Mines
The 1997 Ottawa Convention (the total ban: the production, the stockpiling, the transfer, the use — the ICBL’s campaign-and-Prize); the Nepal record (the minefields’ laying-and-later-clearance — the peace process’s demining; the landmine victims’ faces); the hold-outs (the major powers’ non-membership).
4.1.7 Explosive Remnants of War
The CCW’s Protocol V: the post-conflict debris (the unexploded ordnance, the abandoned munitions) — the clearance’s duty, the risk-education, the victims’ assistance.
4.1.8 Cluster Munition
The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (the Oslo process): the ban (the indiscriminate area-effects-and-the-UXO legacy); the users’-producers’ destruction duty; the states’ positions (the major producers’ non-membership); the recent uses’ record.
4.1.9 Nuclear Weapons
The ICJ’s 1996 advisory opinion (the threat-or-use’s general illegality — no clear conclusion on the extreme self-defence; the humanitarian-law compatibility’s doubt); the NPT’s-and-TPNW’s regimes (the TPNW’s 2017 total ban — the nuclear states’ absence); the nuclear age’s ultimate question.
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