Chemical weapon

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Template:TOC-right A chemical weapon is a chemical, with a delivery system that can deliver the agent in militarily significant concentrations, the primary effect of which is to injure or kill through poisoning: molecular interaction between the chemical agent and the metabolism of the victim. While explosives and incendiaries are indeed chemical compounds, and may even be poisonous if ingested, because their major military effect is through blast or heat, they are not considered chemical weapons.

Use of chemical (and biological) warfare is banned by the 1925 Geneva Protocol The production and proliferation of chemical weapons is internationally banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC); the CWC deals with the complexity that some chemical weapons, or precursors needed to prepare them, are dual-use. Dual use chemicals such as chlorine have widespread peaceful uses in water purification and in industrial chemistry, but have also used as weapons of war.

Historically, the most extensive use of lethal chemical weapons was in the First World War, although they were used sporadically in counterinsurgency, or in the Second World War Japanese campaign against China. The gassing of the Kurdish people by Saddam Hussein is another well known example.