Why did the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925 ban poisonous gases and bacteriological warfare?

The Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925 was established primarily to prevent a recurrence of the atrocities committed during World War I. The widespread deployment of asphyxiating and poisonous gases during that conflict resulted in over one million casualties, causing profound alarm within the international community regarding the immense dangers posed by such weaponry.123

By banning the use of asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases and bacteriological methods of warfare, the international community sought to uphold the ethical principle of limiting human-inflicted mass destruction. The horrors experienced by combatants during the war—where chemical agents like mustard gas were used extensively—persuaded world leaders of the urgent necessity to prohibit these indiscriminate weapons.12

While the protocol was a landmark step in international law, it was limited by its failure to ban the production or stockpiling of these weapons and by the fact that many nations reserved the right to use them in retaliation. These inadequacies were later addressed by more comprehensive treaties, such as the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.123