The Sunshine Project
News Alert - 3 March 2003The Independent (London) reported yesterday that the US Department of Defense has deployed tear gas and pepper spray (OC) to the Persian Gulf. The Independent also reports that the US Special Forces have developed incapacitating chemical weapons in apparent violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. This news alert provides a link to the article and discussion of important points raised by it.
See: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=383006
An international norm exists against any use of toxic chemical weapons in armed conflict. Riot control agents, as defined in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), are permitted for use for law enforcement, but not in war. This is in large measure because of the risk of escalation to full-scale chemical warfare.
While such weapons are often called "non-lethal", they can be deadly and in military applications are frequently used with lethal force. For example, in Vietnam, the US used tear gas to force opponents out of enclosed spaces (buildings, tunnels), whereupon they were shot. Similarly, in the October 2002 storming of the Moscow theater, Russian Special Forces used an incapacitating chemical and then performed extrajudicial executions on nearly 50 unconscious Chechen separatists.
Of particular concern is the US usage of the term "riot control agent" (RCA). A Pentagon statement to The Independent reiterates the incorrect terminology used by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in testimony last month before the US Congress. The statement to The Independent reads in part "riot control agents are weapons or agents that are explicitly designed and primarily employed so as to incapacitate personnel". The Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate employs similarly confusing terminology.
In law, weapons that incapacitate personnel are not riot control agents. Under the CWC, RCAs are defined as being agents that cause temporary sensory effects that quickly disappear (e.g. tear gas). Chemical weapons that incapacitate - even temporarily - are completely prohibited. US officials, however, continue to conflate the terms, discussing incapacitants under the rubric of "RCAs". Because the US agents are "explicitly designed and primarily employed so as to incapacitate", they are not riot control agents. Used in armed conflict, they are chemical weapons. A recent analysis by the Federation of American Scientists concluded that such weapons would have at least 9% lethality.
The incorrect use of terminology is apparently intended to preempt controversy over the US military's weapons that use powerful, incapacitating toxic chemicals and which almost certainly violate the Chemical Weapons Convention. Despite the fact that even RCAs are prohibited in war, by applying the term "riot control agent" in an overbroad manner, the US is seeking to rhetorically connect a new, more powerful class of weapons with the comparatively familiar tear gas. The hope may well be that this association will ease the political constraints on use of incapacitating chemical weapons, a situation which will pose a very serious challenge to the efficacy of the Chemical Weapons Convention.