White phosphorus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arms control status and military regulations[edit]
There are multiple international laws that could be seen to regulate white phosphorus use.[92] Article 1 of Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons defines an incendiary weapon as "any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target". The same protocol prohibits the use of said incendiary weapons against civilians (already forbidden by the Geneva Conventions) or in civilian areas. The convention also defines weapons which are not to be considered to be incendiary weapons.
Examples are:
(i) Munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;(ii) Munitions designed to combine penetration, blast or fragmentation effects with an additional incendiary effect.
Weapons containing white phosphorus, but are not incendiary weapons, are not regulated by the above protocol.
However, the use against military targets outside civilian areas is not explicitly banned by any treaty. The convention is meant to prohibit weapons that are "dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare" (Article II, Definitions, 9, "Purposes not Prohibited" c.).
The convention defines a "toxic chemical" as a chemical "which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals" (CWC, II). An annex lists chemicals that fall under this definition and WP is not listed in the Schedules of chemical weapons or precursors.[93]
In an 2005 interview with RAI, Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (an organization overseeing the CWC and reporting directly to the UN General Assembly), questioned whether the weapon should fall under the convention's provisions:
