Chemical weapons

“All weapons of war are destructive to human life, but chemical and bacteriological (biological) weapons stand in a class of their own as armaments which exercise their effects solely on living matter. The fact that certain chemical and bacteriological (biological) agents are potentially unconfined in their effects, both in space and time, and that their large-scale use could conceivably have deleterious and irreversible effects on the balance of nature, adds to the sense of insecurity and tension which the existence of this class of weapons engenders”, a United Nations expert group observed in a 1969 report on those weapons.

Related Subject(s): Disarmament