ON March 22 two years ago, a country submitted for consideration by diplomats at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament meeting in Geneva an explanatory paper on its initiative on an international convention for the suppression of acts of chemical terrorism.

That country was the Russian Federation.

Article 2 of the proposed convention reads: “Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally uses chemical weapon to commit an action intended to cause death to a civilian or any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict or to cause serious bodily injury, when the purpose of such action, by its nature or context, is to intimidate population or to compel public authorities or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act.”