On September 10

On this day in ...
... 1998, in the Netherlands, diplomats adopted the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. This multilateral treaty (Secretariat logo at left) aims to improve health and the environment by encouraging interstate cooperation regarding trade in specified hazardous chemicals. Modes of cooperation may include information sharing and implementation of state-level processes for import and export of such chemicals. The Rotterdam Convention entered into force on February 2004, and now has 134 states parties. The United States signed the day after adoption; in the ensuing dozen years, however, it has not ratified the treaty.

(Prior September 10 posts are here, here, and here.)

On September 3

On this day in ...
... 1992, meeting at Geneva, Switzerland, the multilateral Conference on Disarmament adopted a draft text for the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, which then was transmitted in the Conference Report to the U.N. General Assembly. The adoption culminated efforts dating at least to 1968, when Sweden placed discussion of chemical weapons curtailment on the active agenda of a conference then known as the 18 Nations Disarmament Committee, chaired jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union. The chemical weapons treaty would enter into force on April 26,1997. As of May 2009 it had 188 states parties, including the United States.

(Prior September 3 posts are here, here, and here.)

On May 7

On this day in ...
... 1954 (55 years ago today), Viet Minh troops overrun Dien Bien Phu, the capital of the northern Vietnam province of the same name. The victory marked the end not only of a nearly 2-month battle against French troops, but also of French colonial rule in Indochina. (credit for Agence France-Presse photo of Viet Minh troops raising flag after 1954 victory)
... 1984 (25 years ago today), at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, a "long-scheduled" class action trial was avoided when 7 manufacturers of Agent Orange agreed "to create a $180 million fund for thousands of Vietnam veterans and their families who said the herbicide had harmed them." Agent Orange-related medical problems continue to be addressed by U.S. veterans agencies, as is evident here. (credit for photo of U.S. helicopter spraying Agent Orange herbicide/defoliant over Mekong Delta jungle)

(Prior May 7 posts are here and here.)

On April 12

On this day in ...
... 1204 (805 years ago today), during the 4th Crusade, Constantinople fell to crusaders and Venetians. All who take note of current conflicts will find familiar ground in what this website writes of what happened next in the Byzantine city (below left; credit) where today stands Istanbul, Turkey:

Thus began the sack of Constantinople, the richest city of all Europe. Nobody controlled the troops. Thousands of defenseless civilians were killed. Women, even nuns, were raped by the crusading army and churches, monasteries and convents were looted. The very altars of churches were smashed and torn to pieces for their gold and marble by warriors who had sworn to fight in service of the Christian faith.

... 1968, the U.S. Public Health Service released evidence indicating that in Skull Valley, Utah, 6,400 sheep had died because of the airborne testing 4 weeks earlier of a nerve gas agent by the U.S. Army at its Dugway Proving Ground nearby. The Pentagon maintained that no harm to humans would result from the testing of the chemical weapon. (credit for 1968 Deseret News photo)

(Prior April 12 posts are here and here.)

On April 4

On this day in ...

... 1984 (25 years ago today), to make way for road-building, British authorities broke up a peace camp that women had set up 3 years earlier at Greenham Common, Berkshire (left), in protest of plans to store Cruise missiles at a military air base near their homes. (photo credit)

... 1984 (25 years ago today), U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced support for an international ban on chemical weapons. The audio clip of his statement, in which he said that he would send then-Vice President George H.W. Bush to Geneva to take part in multilateral negotiation of a chemical weapons treaty, is here.

(Prior April 4 posts are here and here.)

On July 17

On this day in ...
... 1998 (10 years ago today), in Italy, at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, delegates to a Conference of Plenipotentiaries voted to adopt the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As I've written here and here, the statute was approved by an overwhelming margin of 120 to 7, plus a number of abstentions. Despite particularly vocal opposition from the United States, the statute rapidly attained the necessary 60 ratifications, and so entered into force on July 1, 2002. Earlier this week, Suriname became the 107th state party to the ICC treaty. No trial yet has commenced; however, matters are pending with respect to conflicts in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Sudan. The last matter was made possible when the 3 permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that do not belong to the ICC treaty regime -- not only the United States, but also China and Russia -- refrained from vetoing the 2005 referral of the matter, which pertains specifically to Sudan's Darfur region.
... 1944, napalm was used for the 1st time as a weapon of war. It was dropped by U.S. Army planes onto a fuel depot in St. Lô, France, during World War II. The frequent use of the incendiary chemical in conflicts since then is detailed here. (credit for photo of U.S. riverboat using napalm during Vietnam War)

On April 10

On this day in ...
... 1583 (425 years ago today), in Delft, Netherlands, Hugo Grotius was born, on an Easter Sunday, into a family that "was moderately prosperous, well-educated and ambitious." At age 8, "he began writing skilful elegies in Latin," at 11 "he was a student in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Leiden," and at 15, he took part in his 1st diplomatic mission, as part of a delegation to France. There, about the time of the 1599 portrait at right, he "earned (or possibly just bought) a law degree from the University of Orléans." Before his death in 1645 Grotius would write an immense body of work -- including Mare Liberum/Freedom of the Seas (1608) and De iure belli ac pacis/On the Law of War and Peace (1625) -- that established him as, among many other things, a foreparent of international law. As we've posted, ASIL-West will be celebrating his birthday this evening; if you're in D.C., join us. (portrait credit)
... 1972, at London, Moscow, and Washington, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction was opened for signature. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, as it's known, entered into force on March 26, 1975, also the date of U.S. ratification of the treaty. It has 158 states parties.

On this day

On March 20, ...
... 2008 (today), is celebrated Norooz, the Persian New Year, which corresponds with the arrival of the Vernal Equinox. (image credit) It's a public holiday in Iran, and in numerous countries in Central Asia, and is also celebrated in communities throughout the Persian diaspora.
... 1995, the release of nerve gas into the Tokyo subway system resulted in the deaths of a dozen persons and injuries to 4,700 others. The sarin attack was an act of domestic terrorism, committed by Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult.