The General Purpose Criterion [i]s an important concept in International law which broadly governs international agreements with respect to chemical weapons (CW). Although the term is not found within such agreements, it is "regularly used" to describe the comprehensive nature of prohibitions regarding all CW.
The scope of this criterion broadly governs the purpose of chemical agents opposed to specific objects. Therefor the prohibitions are not limited to a specific list, but encompass all CW to include future incarnations.
The Lieber Code of April 24, 1863, also known as Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, General Order No. 100, or Lieber Instructions, was an instruction signed by President Abraham Lincoln to the Union Forces of the United States during the American Civil War that dictated how soldiers should conduct themselves in wartime.
The main sections were concerned with martial law, military jurisdiction, and the treatment of spies, deserters and prisoners of war.
widely considered to be the first written recital of the customary law of war, in force between the civilized nations and peoples since time immemorial, and the precursor to the Hague Regulations of 1907, the treaty-based restatement of the customary law of war.
while it is true that commanders such as William Tecumseh Sherman rarely if ever consulted the Code in making combat decisions, the Code played a significant role nonetheless in the war's last two years. It provided a blueprint for hundreds of military commissions charging law of war violations. The Lieber Code was used extensively during the Philippine-American War as a justification and later a defense for actions against the native population
Both the Lieber Code and the Hague Regulations of 1907, which took much of the Lieber Code and wrote it into the international treaty law, included practices that would be considered illegal or extremely questionable by today's standards.
The Lieber Code was used extensively during the Philippine-American War as a justification and later a defense for actions against the native population
a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands.
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 were the first multilateral treaties that addressed the conducts of warfare and were largely based on the Lieber Code, which was signed and issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to the Union Forces of the United States in April 24, 1863, during the American Civil War.
the [Lieber] codes were widely regarded as the best summary of the first customary laws and customs of war in the 19th century
Much of the regulations in the Hague Conventions were borrowed heavily from the Lieber Code.
Though not negotiated in The Hague, the Geneva Protocol to the Hague Conventions is considered an addition to the Conventions. Signed on 17 June 1925 and entering into force on 8 February 1928, its single article permanently bans the use of all forms of chemical and biological warfare. The protocol grew out of the increasing public outcry against chemical warfare following the use of mustard gas and similar agents in World War I, and fears that chemical and biological warfare could lead to horrific consequences in any future war. The protocol has since been augmented by the Biological Weapons Convention (1972) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (1993).
After World War II, the judges of the military tribunal of the Trial of German Major War Criminals at Nuremberg Trials found that by 1939, the rules laid down in the 1907 Hague Convention were recognised by all civilised nations and were regarded as declaratory of the laws and customs of war. Under this post-war decision, a country did not have to have ratified the 1907 Hague Convention in order to be bound by them.
Cross-referencing Posts #17 and #18 Re: The League of Nations and the Geneva Protocol at 4um Title: John McCain and Lindsey Graham criticise US-Russia deal on Syria