Is mustard gas illegal today

Answer 1

Mustard gas has been illegal since the Geneva Conventions, however its use by the US Army in Korea was admitted to by a Korean War vet I interviewed. He said it was delivered by rifle grenades which suddenly appeared at the front as the enemy were preparing for a human wave attack. Its effects were horrible as the Communist soldiers had no gask masks, and they climbed on top of each other to get above it, but the vet said it was the only way to stop them. The US denied at the time, and perhaps still does, the use of chemical warfare in this war.

Chemical warfare was also used by Italy against Ethiopia and by Japan against Manchuria after it was outlawed. Germany never used it, perhaps because Hitler's lungs had been damaged by an Allied gas attack in the First World War. Some Allied soldiers in the Second World War carried gas masks and some did not, but all German soldiers did. Deterrence has proved more effective than international legislation in preventing the use of chemical weapons in war. In the 1930's. the League of Nations was unable to stop their use in Ethiopia and Manchuria, countries which possessed no chemical warfare capability, either for defense or retaliation.

There is but one instance of poison gas in WW2, the bombing of an American cargo ship in Bari harbour, Italy in 1943 I think it was....

*EDIT* One thing left out is the gas Hitler used to kill the Jews in Death Camps.

No *EDIT* is required. It was left out because the question was about mustard gas. The agent used to kill Jews (and others left out of the *EDIT*) was a commercial insecticide called Zyclon B, aka bug spray, although some of the camps used carbon monoxide from motor exhaust. Mustard gas is a blistering agent which has no other purpose except in chemical warfare, and its use was outlawed in the 1930's.