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Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government of 1924 promised a new approach to the League. It rejected the Treaty of Mutual Assistance as militaristic, but was slow to advance a positive policy, though it was under strong pressure to adopt the ‘optional clause’ providing for the compulsory jurisdiction of the Permanent Court in justiciable cases. MacDonald agreed to work with the new French premier Edouard Herriot to resolve the security question, but nothing had been done before they arrived at Geneva in August 1924. After MacDonald's departure the British and French delegates agreed to draw up a Protocol on arbitration, security, and disarmament which was largely drafted by the Czech Eduard Beneš. Although it was strongly backed by Arthur Henderson, who effectively took over the leadership of the British delegation, MacDonald believed that it conceded too much to French demands. The Labour government collapsed before a final decision on the Protocol could be made.

This chapter describes the obligations imposed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925, what steps the United States will have to take if it decides to become a party to the Protocol without accepting all of its obligations, and what legal problems it will encounter in doing so. The discussions cover the prohibitory scope of the Protocol; ‘war’ and ‘warfare’ within the meaning of the Protocol; the existing reservations by other states; and possible legal positions that might be taken on irritant chemicals and anti-plant chemicals.

This chapter explores how European foreign relations post-World War I were preoccupied with the question of French security. France wanted a firm commitment by Britain to protect it in case of renewed conflict with Germany. It made significant compromises on security to the Allies in the postwar settlement to gain a formal security guarantee from the US and Britain. However, when the Versailles Treaty was not ratified by the US in 1919, this guarantee failed to continue. France and Britain negotiated a new protocol, the Geneva Protocol, which institutionalized the peaceful conflict resolution desired by the British. It ultimately failed due to domestic differences over foreign policy. Both the successes and failures of bilateral negotiation between the two powers can be explained through a focus on diplomatic style. Despite the now greater disparity in foreign policy preferences, both governments' liberal diplomacy facilitated integrative negotiation.

When World War I ended, the United States shut down its poison gas plants for a time. But General Amos Fries and the chemical industry vowed to fight the dismantling of the precious apparatus they had worked so hard to build. Due to their efforts, despite overwhelming public opinion against gas warfare and strong political opposition from his own commanders, Fries and his allies somehow succeeded in gaining passage of the National Defense Act of 1920, which not only saved the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS) from extinction, but also turned it into a permanent part of the army. Under Fries's leadership, the CWS publicly turned its attention to undertaking cooperative enterprises with various government departments to harness the fruits of wartime gas research in constructive, peaceful ways. A fierce industrial and political battle ensued over one of the world's deadliest and more useful poisons: cyanide. The mining industry relied on cyanide's ability to separate silver, gold, copper, lead, and other ores. Fries and his allies lobbied against America's support for the Geneva Protocol, which sought to outlaw chemical warfare.

The concept of criminal responsibility of states is described. The concept of the criminal liability of individuals responsible for the unlawful use of force in inter-state relations is also shown. In the draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance of 1923, the Geneva Protocol of 1924, and the resolutions of the League Assembly in 1925 and 1927, a war of aggression was declared an ‘international crime’. The provisions of municipal law concerning acts likely to cause war are provided. Allied declarations on the punishment of war criminals contained no unequivocal statement of an intention to punish crimes against peace. There is no lack of justice or reason in punishing the individual who gives reality and substance to the ‘acts of the state’, since it is he and not the state entity which has the mens rea.

Chapter 6 charts Irish responses mid-1920s’ efforts to create a European security architecture culminating in the Locarno Pacts and German admission to the League of Nations. Ireland favoured using the League to strengthen European security and disapproved of attempts by the larger powers to decide matters among themselves. In protest at this tendency to sideline small states, the Irish ran unsuccessfully for election to the League’s governing Council in 1926. In the same year a breakthrough was achieved on the Commonwealth front when the Balfour Declaration recognized the equality of the dominions. Dublin increasingly valued the League and its conferences and technical bodies such as the ILO, as a means to consolidate its sovereignty and to profile the Irish state and its values-based approach to foreign policy. But as the Geneva Protocol would show, an increasingly internationalist approach would at times conflict with the realities of Ireland’s ties with Britain.

Civilians are helpless in the face of air attack, making the limitation of bombing especially important morally. This chapter initiates a series on limits on bombing. NATO’s bombing of Serbia was a new hybrid type of bombing that attempted to cause civilian misery without targeting civilians directly but instead targeting dual-use infrastructure that can be argued to constitute military objectives but also performs vital functions for civilians. The legal issue is whether Article 52:2 of 1977 Geneva Protocol I must be interpreted so as to make all dual-use infrastructure permissible to attack. A moral logic appealing to basic rights would require an interpretation excluding infrastructure performing indispensable civilian functions.

In May 1925, the League of Nations convened a Conference for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War in Geneva, Switzerland. Six weeks of negotiations resulted in a new Arms Traffic Convention (as well as the Geneva Protocol against the usage of chemical and biological weapons), which representatives from eighteen countries—including the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—signed on June 17. The United States led the way to that moment yet did not follow through on it afterward. The treaty, which lacked robust enforcement mechanisms, languished in national legislatures and never entered into force. Even so, it had a constructive legacy: the compilation and publication of statistics on gun-running. Intelligence based on open and closed sources collected for, and resulting from, the Arms Traffic Conference, indicated systematic violations of the European peace settlements and revealed a world awash in guns.

Nasser’s “long-breath strategy” from 1966 through the end of 1967 was focused on maintaining the security of the strategic triangle while using fewer troops. Instead, an intensive bombing campaign that included poison gas was used to target the vast royalist cave network in North Yemen. Despite Egypt’s violation of the Geneva Protocols of 1925, the international community failed to condemn the use of chemical weapons, demonstrating the tenacity of the poison gas taboo. Saudi Ambassador Jamil Baroody’s fierce campaign against UN Secretary General U Thant’s inaction failed to persuade the UN to act. The ICRC, NATO, United States, and UK refused to openly criticize Egypt, as they did not want to fall out of favor with Nasser and suffer economic or political repercussions.