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The USSR rejected the Maltese arguments even more emphatically:
“arguments that the Geneva Protocol is limited in content and does not
cover all forms of chemical and bacteriological warfare are very dan-
gerous and unfounded.” Furthermore, the Soviet representative claimed
that “a policy of replacement or revision [of the Protocol] would lead
only to the undermining of most important and fundamental restraint on
chemical and bacteriological warfare.”
32
The Netherlands stepped into the fray and proposed amendments to
Malta's draft resolution that constituted a compromise. The Dutch agreed
with the Maltese that the Geneva Protocol was outdated but supported
the Hungarian position on its expression of value, noting that it “remains
the only instrument of its kind” and that it exercised some “restraining
influences” on the use of CBW.
33
The proposed amendments reaffirmed
the Hungarian resolution on the Protocol passed the previous year. Ulti-
mately both Hungary and Malta withdrew their draft resolutions after US
opposition to a compromise draft.
34
The study by the secretary general of
the effects of CBW, however, did take place. The report was concluded in
1969 and was influential in the subsequent negotiations.
35
The influence of the Geneva Protocol in BW disarmament discussions
should not be underestimated. The debates over the resolutions described
above centered on three issues: first, the ban on first use of CBW was ac-
cepted as international law; second, of the major powers only Japan and
the US were not parties to the Protocol; and third, the US was using
chemicals in Vietnam—a fact interpreted by some, but not all, as a viola-
tion of the Protocol. As late as 1969 the US mission in Geneva, in arguing
for US ratification of the Protocol, put it this way:
all discussions regarding CBW, in one sense or another, have to take into
account fact that US has not...ratified Protocol, while virtually all other
countries participating in discussion have accepted these obligations . . .
if US should decide that its interests permit serious consideration of UK
initiative for BW Convention, US would probably not...beable breathe
life into British initiative and interest others in its negotiation, unless we
had moved to ratify Protocol. Opposition to UK initiative derives in part
from suspicion that US, as non-party to Protocol, would exploit study of
such a BW measure either to draw attention from US non-adherence to
protocol or to demonstrate that Geneva Protocol is not...asatisfactory
instrument.
36
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