Investigations

PHR Research on Chemical Weapons

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Witness Omar Hassan, wearing a traditional Kurdish headscarf, testifies on October 17 during the trial of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Hussein and six co-defendants were on trial for the 1987-1988 Anfal campaign of bombings and gas attacks on Kurdish villages. PHR's report, Winds of Death, provided evidence that Iraq had used mustard gas, and possibly a lethal nerve agent, against Kurdish civilians.

Chemical weapons cause widespread death and permanent injury. Once released, these difficult-to-control poisons kill indiscriminately, recognizing neither uniform nor flag. Infants, the elderly, and the chronically ill are particularly vulnerable.

In the wake of WWI, after toxic gasses claimed more than a million military and civilian casualties, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned chemical warfare. Yet nearly 100 years later, countries continue to deploy poisonous weapons of mass destruction in battle — and against civilians — killing thousands and terrorizing entire populations.

In response to reported use of chemical weapons, PHR provides independent technical expertise to assess exposure. In 1988, a PHR team traveled to the Turkey-Iraq border to investigate claims that the government of Saddam Hussein had devastated Kurdish villages with poisonous gas. The PHR report that followed, Winds of Death, provided evidence that Iraq had used mustard gas and, most likely, a lethal nerve agent in attacks on civilians in dozens of Kurdish villages.

PHR has also investigated the short- and long-term health effects of tear gas, especially on vulnerable populations. While outlawed for use in war, governments routinely and legally use various tear gases to control their own populations. PHR's research into tear gas-related death and injury in South Korea and elsewhere challenged the conventional view that these chemicals are harmless.

In addition to documenting and assessing past use of chemical weapons, PHR works to prevent future attacks. PHR's vigorous advocacy for an updated chemical arms control agreement helped passage of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention that outlawed the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and moved the world closer to eliminating this grave violation of human rights.