Ilchmann Kai, Revill James
Institute of International Relations, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
Sci Eng Ethics. 2014 Sep;20(3):753-67. doi: 10.1007/s11948-013-9479-7. Epub 2013 Oct 17.
The strategic use of disease and poison in warfare has been subject to a longstanding and cross-cultural taboo that condemns the hostile exploitation of poisons and disease as the act of a pariah. In short, biological and chemical weapons are simply not fair game. The normative opprobrium is, however, not fixed, but context dependent and, as a social phenomenon, remains subject to erosion by social (or more specifically, antisocial) actors. The cross cultural understanding that fighting with poisons and disease is reprehensible, that they are taboo, is codified through a web of interconnected measures, principal amongst these are the 1925 Geneva Protocol; the Biological Weapons Convention; and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Whilst these treaties have weathered the storm of international events reasonably well, their continued health is premised on their being 'tended to' in the face of contextual changes, particularly facing changes in science and technology, as well as the changed nature and character of conflict. This article looks at the potential for normative erosion of the norm against chemical and biological weapons in the face of these contextual changes and the creeping legitimization of chemical and biological weapons.
在战争中战略性地使用疾病和毒药一直受到长期存在的跨文化禁忌的约束，这种禁忌谴责将毒药和疾病用于敌对目的是遭人唾弃的行为。简而言之，生物和化学武器根本不是正当的战争手段。然而，这种规范性的谴责并非一成不变，而是取决于具体情境，并且作为一种社会现象，仍会受到社会（或者更具体地说，反社会）行为体的侵蚀。认为使用毒药和疾病作战应受谴责、它们是禁忌的这种跨文化理解，通过一系列相互关联的措施得以编纂成法，其中主要的有1925年《日内瓦议定书》、《生物武器公约》和《化学武器公约》。尽管这些条约在国际风云变幻中总体经受住了考验，但它们能否持续有效取决于能否在面对情境变化时，尤其是面对科学技术的变化以及冲突性质和特点的改变时，对其加以“维护”。本文探讨了在这些情境变化以及化学和生物武器逐渐合法化的情况下，禁止化学和生物武器的规范受到侵蚀的可能性。
