Editing Geneva Protocol (section)

==Historical assessment==
[[File:Sarin test rabbit.jpg|thumb|upright|Rabbit used to check for leaks at a [[sarin]] production plant in 1970]]
Eric Croddy, assessing the Protocol in 2005, took the view that the historic record showed it had been largely ineffectual. Specifically it does not prohibit:<ref name=coddy-2005>{{cite book |pages=140–142 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzlNgS70OHAC |title=Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology and History, Volume 1 |author=Eric A. Croddy, James J. Wirtz |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2005 |isbn=978-1851094905 |access-date=28 April 2013}}</ref>

* use against not-ratifying parties
* retaliation using such weapons, so effectively making it a no-first-use agreement
* use within a state's own borders in a civil conflict
* research and development of such weapons, or stockpiling them
In light of these shortcomings, Jack Beard notes that "the Protocol (...) resulted in a legal framework that allowed states to conduct [biological weapons] research, develop new biological weapons, and ultimately engage in [biological weapons] arms races".<ref name=":0" />

As such, the use of chemical weapons inside the nation's own territory against its citizens or subjects employed by [[Spain]] in [[Chemical weapons in the Rif War|the Rif War]] until 1927,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/the-rif-war-a-forgotten-war-923|title=The Rif War: A forgotten war?|author=Pascal Daudin|date=June 2023|publisher=[[International Review of the Red Cross]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Noguer |first=Miquel |date=2005-07-02 |title=ERC exige que España pida perdón por el uso de armas químicas en la guerra del Rif |language=es |work=El País |url=https://elpais.com/diario/2005/07/03/catalunya/1120352849_850215.html |access-date=2023-01-06 |issn=1134-6582}}</ref> Japan against [[Seediq people|Seediq]] indigenous rebels in [[Taiwan]] (then part of the [[Japanese colonial empire]]) in 1930 during the [[Musha Incident]], Iraq against ethnic [[Kurds|Kurdish]] civilians in the [[Halabja massacre|1988 attack on Halabja]] during the [[Iran–Iraq War]], and [[Syria]] or [[Syrian opposition to Bashar al-Assad|Syrian opposition]] forces during [[Use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war|the Syrian civil war]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/protocol-prohibition-use-war-asphyxiating-poisonous-or-other-gasses-and-bacteriological-methods-warfare-geneva-protocol/#:~:text=The%20Geneva%20Protocol%2C%20implicitly%2C%20does,cover%20internal%20or%20civil%20conflicts.|title=Geneva Protocol: Protocol For the Prohibition of the Use In War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases, And of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (Geneva Protocol)|publisher=[[Nuclear Threat Initiative]]}}</ref>

Despite the U.S. having been a proponent of the protocol, the [[U.S. military]] and [[American Chemical Society]] lobbied against it, causing the [[U.S. Senate]] not to ratify the protocol until 1975, the same year when the United States ratified the [[Biological Weapons Convention]].<ref name=coddy-2005/><ref name=bunn-1969/>