What did the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol ban?

The 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol prohibited the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases and bacteriological methods of warfare.1

It is important to note that the protocol did not ban the development, production, stockpiling, or transfer of these weapons. Furthermore, many nations signed the treaty with the explicit reservation that they maintained the right to use these weapons for retaliatory purposes if attacked with them first. Because of these limitations, the protocol was later supplemented by more comprehensive international agreements, specifically the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, which aimed to address the production and storage of such weaponry.1

The use of these weapons is fundamentally unethical, as they cause indiscriminate suffering and mass destruction that violates the basic principles of humanity and the laws of war.12