A conditional norm: chemical warfare from colonialism to contemporary civil wars

Abstract

The norm against chemical weapons (CW) is considered to be a strong and universal restraint against poisonous methods of warfare. Yet the repeated CW attacks during the Syrian civil war have raised questions about the robustness of this international norm. Under what conditions do third parties emphatically sanction violators of the norm? Adopting a historical approach, we analyse the discursive and contextual dynamics characterising the CW attacks since the early twentieth century. Employing process tracing, we consult a variety of rich archival resources including primary language documents to study a number of historical cases including late colonial wars during the interwar period, and Middle Eastern civil wars since the late twentieth century. Building on Judith Butler’s distinction of grievable and ungrievable lives and Didier Fassin’s notion of politics of life, we argue that the anti-CW norm has never had universal status and always remained conditional on a hierarchy of victims. CW attacks targeting certain groups have been more readily justifiable and generated ineffective and inconsistent third-party reactions. Consequently, certain groups, who are implicitly or explicitly perceived to be outside the pale of civilised order, remain more vulnerable to CW attacks than others.

Keywords:

• chemical weapons
• international norms
• precarity
• colonial wars
• civil wars
• Syria

Acknowledgements

The authorship is equal. Tezcür was primarily responsible for theory development; Horschig for empirical analyses. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the International Studies Association and Midwest Political Science Association conferences and brown bag series in the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida in 2019. We thank Thomas Dolan, Christopher Way, Jean Pascal Zanders, and brown bag participants for their comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The only states that have not ratified the treaty are Egypt, Israel, North Korea and South Sudan.

2 Norms are ‘collective expectations for the proper behavior of actors within a given identity’ (Katzenstein 1996, 5). Norms that are ambiguously defined and leave a greater latitude are more likely to be violated (Shannon 2000). Even if the CW norm is enshrined in a major international treaty with monitoring mechanisms, some of its implications are still open to opposing interpretations (Zanders 2003).

3 We do not include the gassing of Jews and other groups by Nazi Germany since the goal was extermination beyond and above any military purposes. We also exclude attacks by non-state actors such as the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attacks and chlorine attacks conducted by al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006–2007.

4 In addition, Agent Orange was used in an effort to destroy crops and to deprive the enemy of concealment, and not to directly target human beings.

5 The US, which used tear gas heavily in Vietnam, denied that the GP prohibited nontoxic gases. Yet a United Nations resolution in 1969, in explicit defiance of the US, condemned the use of all chemical and biological agents in international armed conflicts. See https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/4784.htm (accessed June 18, 2020).

6 The Spanish parliament rejected a bill acknowledging the use of CW in the Rif War that would have provided for indemnities to the victims or their descendants in 2007.

7 France was the first to use CW during WWI and continued to test chemical weapons during the Algerian war of independence that lasted from 1954 to 1962 (Tucker 2006, 169). It also pursued indiscriminate violence against Algerians (Evans 2013). Then why did France not use CW in Algeria? While a satisfactory response requires extensive empirical research, our theoretical framework suggests that the CW norm was not the main reason for French decision not to use CW in Algeria. Rather, France did not have the need to employ gas as a force multiplier, as it maintained complete military superiority, unlike other colonial powers discussed earlier. Its eventual withdrawal from Algeria was due to growing domestic unrest and international pressure during an era of decolonisation.

8 Resolution 620 simply notes that CW use ‘against Iranians had become more intense and ­frequent’ (UNSC 1988).

9 The US government concluded that 1429 people, including 426 children, had been killed as a result of nerve agent exposure (The White House 2013). An assessment by the British Joint Intelligence Organisation suggested that at least 350 people had been killed (Day 2013).

10 https://translations.state.gov/2019/09/26/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-at-a-press-availability/ (accessed June 19, 2020).

11 In 2017, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in a VX nerve agent attack in Malaysia.

12 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sergei-skirpal-latest-spy-poisoning-salisbury-chemical-attack-douma-russia-bz-novichok-lab-a8369921.html. (accessed June 22, 2020).

13 The absent international reaction to the credible allegations of CW warfare by Sudan in Darfur in 2016 and the restrained international reaction to the poisoning of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny on Russian soil on August 20, 2020, further confirm the conditionality of the norm.

14 It is also reported that Chile manufactured and used sarin in the 1970s to assassinate opponents of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (González 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Güneş Murat Tezcür

Güneş Murat Tezcür holds the Jalal Talabani Chair of Kurdish Political Studies at the University of Central Florida. With a PhD from the University of Michigan (2005), he is a Social Scientist studying political violence, identity and movements. His articles have appeared in many scholarly journals such as American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Studies Perspectives, Journal of Peace Research, Perspectives on Politics, Law and Society Review, Nationalities Papers, Party Politics, Politics & Gender and Political Research Quarterly. He is also the author of Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey: The Paradox of Moderation (University of Texas Press, 2010).

Doreen Horschig

Doreen Horschig is a PhD Candidate in Security Studies and a Teaching Associate at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida. Her dissertation work uses experimental methods to explore causal mechanisms of Israeli and US public opinion on the use of weapons of mass destruction. She has work published as scholarly articles in Defense and Security Analysis and Democratization and political commentaries in The Conversation, Inkstick Media, and Duck of Minerva.