Legal Constraints on Biological Weapons - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 340

1975-2005: Constraints on Use

For this second period of 30 years, there is relatively less to say about con-
straints on use but much more to say about constraints on possession,
brought into full effect by the entry into force of the BWC on 26 March
1975.
Constraints on use remained rooted in the Geneva Protocol of 17 June
1925 and the related norm of customary international law.
The US ratification of the Protocol on 10 April 1975 was followed by a
steady inflow of new States Parties, enlarging the roster from 95 to 132 by
the end of the century: 6

1976 Barbados, Qatar

1977 Jordan (R) , Senegal, Uruguay

1978 Bhutan

1980 Papua New Guinea (R) , Sudan, Vietnam (R)

1981 Solomon Islands (R)

1983 Cambodia, Guatemala

1985 Bolivia, Peru

1986 Afghanistan, Benin, People's Democratic Republic of (South)

Yemen (R) (which united with the Yemen Arab Republic, already
a State Party to the Protocol, on 22 May 1990)

1988 Antigua & Barbuda, Bahrain (R) , Saint Lucia

1989 Albania, Bangladesh (R) , Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Grenada,

Guinea-Bissau, Democratic People's Republic of (North)
Korea (R) , Republic of (South) Korea (R) , Laos, Saint Kitts & Nevis

1990 Angola (R) , Nicaragua

1991 Cape Verde, Liechtenstein, Swaziland

1992 Algeria (R) , Russia (in succession to the USSR, a party since

1928) (R)

1993 Czech Republic (in succession to Czechoslovakia, a party since

1938)

1997 Slovakia (also in succession to Czechoslovakia)

1999 Saint Vincent & the Grenadines

With the US ratifying in 1975, Uruguay in 1977, and Nicaragua in 1990,
only one of the Protocol's original signatories—El Salvador—was left
with its signature unratified and hence bound only by the obligation to
refrain from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the Proto-
col. The great majority of nonparties were now states that had never