Arms of mass Destruction and International Law Term Paper

Arms of mass Destruction and International Law - Term Paper Example Evidently, international law has a lasting association with the endeavors to manage weapons of mass destruction, which followed the development of prohibitions (treaty) on the employment of poisonous gases in war (Busch & Joyner, 2009). Three bodies on international law can be delineated as regulating WMD, namely: arms control treaties, international law guiding the use of force, and international humanitarian law. Historically, the most outstanding and direct utilization of international law in relation to WMD was via arms control treaties. This denotes international agreements fashioned to ban or limit the development, ownership, and employment of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons by states.The international law on the use of force addresses the threat or the application of force rather than the development of weapons. On the use of WMD, international law on the use of force establishes legal justifications for the alternative to force, rather than rules detailing the weapo ns states may utilize.   On the use of WMD, international humanitarian law outlines the kinds of weapons that can be employed in armed conflict such as outlawing the use of weapons that can render superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.   Arms control treaties, on the other hand, specifically control the development of WMD and proscribe the utilization of chemical and biological weapons.   This body of international law mirrors the â€Å"arms control approach† to WMD detailing formal agreements among states to control the use and development of WMD.