About the book

Incorporating a wealth of new information from around the world, this study concerns contemporary research, development, promotion and deployment of weapons employing two distinct types of toxic chemicals: riot control agents and incapacitating chemical agents. Dr Crowley highlights the international community’s failure to effectively regulate these weapons, and the consequences for human rights and human security. Employing an innovative ‘holistic arms control’ methodology, the author analyses regulatory systems and the international law potentially applicable to such weapons in order to develop effective routes to combat their misuse. In addition to State-centric mechanisms, the increasingly important roles of the scientific and medical communities, and informed activist civil society, are explored.

‘Here is a beautiful and meticulously researched text that needs to be read by everyone working for a world finally free of chemical weapons. It is constructed as a case study in ‘holistic’ arms control, which is a novel and rich approach that calls for a still wider readership.‘
– Professor Julian Perry Robinson, Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons, UK

‘Michael Crowley’s book is an important contribution to the debate about whether law enforcement use of riot control and incapacitating agents would undermine the prohibition of poison weapons. He places a complicated arms control issue into a broader legal and institutional context, and discusses strategies for dealing with these evolving technologies. A much needed book.’
– Dr Ralf Trapp, International Disarmament Consultant and former senior official at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), The Netherlands

‘The development of incapacitating chemical agent based weapons presents a serious threat to the Chemical Weapons Convention. This book explains the importance of transparency on these chemicals, as well as on riot control agents and their means of delivery, and suggests how both types of weapon could be brought under effective international control. This is a pressing task for the OPCW especially in light of recent and repeated use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict.’
– Stefan Mogl, Head of Chemistry Division, Spiez Laboratory, Switzerland, and former Chair, OPCW Scientific Advisory Board