The Prayer for Syria, Gaza, North Korea and South Sudan

Yesterday, I posted two posts that were, in actuality, Praying for Peace posts. The thing is, though, since it had been so long since I did the last one, I forgot one of the cardinal rules I set for myself: I'm supposed to end in a prayer.  I told people what to pray for, but I forgot to write my own prayer out.  So, here's that prayer...

Dear God,

Thank you for loving us so deeply, for knowing us so intimately, and for never, ever abandoning us, even while we abandon one another. I'm sorry we have failed so miserably at loving your children.  Let me rephrase: I'm sorry I fail so miserably at loving your children.  Please forgive me.

Lord, I lift up South Sudan to you, where your children are killing each other.  Lord, please bring peace there. I pray those who are persecuted find comfort in knowing you and ask that you stop the fighting and the killing and the persecution.  You tell us to pray for our enemies, though, so I also want to life up the persecutors, both past and present, and ask that you change their hearts. Help those who are fighting to put down the weapons of war and to search for your heart in this mess.  Help them to see you in those they are fighting - to see your love, to see your creation, and to see you as you live through each of us.  Lord, protect the civilians, and the UN forces, and those giving out aid and assistance.  Stabilize this new state and help them to transition to a place of sustainable peace.

Lord, I also lift up Gaza to you. I pray for those who have been displaced by the flooding there. Help them find refuge. Help them to rebuild their lives.  Help change the hearts of those who would limit the resources available to these, your children. Let there be a renewed commitment by the international community to alleviate the suffering of those in Gaza.  Bring them supplies and food and medical services, and offer them peace - true, sustainable, growing peace. I pray for all the leaders involved who can bring about a change here, give them heart responsive to those in need.  

Lord, I pray for peace on the Korean peninsula. I pray that you will move miracles in North Korea, changing the heart of those who lead there, allowing for freedom to enter. Give guidance to those with responsibility in this situation.

Finally, Lord, I lift up the Syrians to you. Lord, help those who are seeking refuge to find shelter; those in need of medical care to find relief; and those who are hungry, food.  Help those who are weary from war and freezing from the cold to find rest, warmth and peace. Help us to open our doors and our communities to those in need, to see in others ourselves and, more important, you and who you are.  Give those with power wisdom to see how we can offer our brothers and sisters relief, how we can push forward for peace, and how we can ensure that peace is sustainable. I pray for those working in aid agencies, and for the Red Cross and Red Crescent.  Help them to stay safe while being effective; help them to reach those in need.  Let those with money fill their funds up, so they can do their work.  Lord, I know you work miracles, so I ask that every dollar they get turn to an effectiveness ten-times that. Help me to remember how connected I am to those who seek asylum. Help me to be a better advocate for those in Syria, to find ways to work for peace and to alleviate suffering. Help us to love the Syrian people as we would wish to be loved, as we love ourselves, and our families.  Help us to serve them well, and completely from our hearts. Finally, Lord, I just pray for peace there.  Let us find peace on Earth - in Syria. Let the Syrians feel restored.  Help them Lord.

And Lord, I want to pray for my friends from Syria.  People I love and hold dear already - whose faces I see clearly whenever the news stories fail to tell me the names of the Syrians they cover.  I pray for M, M, M, A, S, and the others, whose families are still in Syria and who cannot leave.  Give them strength; keep them safe; and let them know each day how loved they area.  

I commit all these things to you, Lord, and seek your wisdom, your grace, and your love.
Amen.

Duck Dynasty and the World, Part 2: Syria

[This is the second part of a 2-part piece 3-part piece on the response of Christians to the Duck Dynasty situation; the third part is now the prayer for peace for Syria, Gaza, South Sudan, and North Korea.]

When I think about the attention given to the Duck Dynasty response, though, the thing that upsets me is how often the news discusses it before Syria.  An actual war with significant consequences for religious freedom for Christians in the Middle East is bumped so we can discuss whether an actor - who likely has a contract provision allowing for his suspension in circumstances just like this - is being persecuted because his employer is suspending his presence on TV (not even his primary income source) after insulting members of the audience.  

I’ve wanted to discuss Syria for the past few days. I started these blog posts long before Phil whats-his-name destroyed the internet – or at least my Facebook feed. I can’t stand what I see as the indifference people have towards the situation facing my friends and their families. 

Before I go further, I feel the need to explain a little about Syria to combat stereotypes people may have in their head. Like Lebanon, Syria has actually been a pretty safe country for Christians, on the relative scale of persecution of Christians world wide – or the relative scale of the persecution faced by minority religious believers in most states, including Muslims in Christian-dominant states and atheists and agnostics in a slew of states.  But back to Syria… Christians are a smaller part of the population than they are in Lebanon – about 10% for Syria while Lebanese Christians are almost 40% of the population there - and the Christians in Syria face dire consequences from this conflict. Christians are targeted by multiple sides in the conflict there, and if extremists win the war, Christian refugees may feel completely unable to return.

But all of that is one small part of the story in Syria. 

I’ve never been to Syria, but I have been lucky enough to end up with amazing Syrian friends, both Muslims and Christians. So when I think about Syria, it’s their faces I see.  It’s their families I think about.  It’s their communities I pray for. Their whole communities.

The last few days my mind and heart have been pre-occupied with those friends, and the people in Syria who are unable to leave and find safe refuge elsewhere.  The situation in Syria is grave. For those who would flee, though, the situation in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan may be just as bad.

There's been snow on the ground in the refugee camps, and the winter is expected to get worse.  The tents in the camps, though, are not made for snow - or for the extreme cold.  There aren't enough mattresses for people - or enough food and supplies.  

This, of course, encourages some people to stay in dangerous situations. If the options are living in danger in a place they know or living in danger in a place they don’t, many are likely to choose the former.  In Syria, that often means staying in cities where they risk dying of starvation.  Or dying from barrel bombs. Or from the cold. Or just dying -because they don't have the means to live.

The scene sounds like something out of The Hunger Games, minus the televised audience and the potential for one person to win food and a reprieve for their entire community.

I've been thinking a lot about the snow in Syria and the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Snow changes things.  

The temperature in my parents’ house is set at 71F/21.6C. Outside the house, the ground was covered by several inches of snow and ice until it rained last night. If the house dips to 69F/20C here, I can feel it. It means the timing mechanism on my parents’ heating had kicked in and I have to go fix it. I wear warm-ish clothes – sweatshirts and thick socks – and I have blankets wrapped around me. Right now, an electric fireplace is running nearby. Yet, when the snow is on the ground, I can feel those two degrees of difference. 

In the UK summer, 20C (69F) feels just fine to me. I would like it to be 22C (72F), but I’m okay with it being 20. In the Cleveland winter, 69F (20C) makes me reach for hot chocolate. It makes me find another blanket and turn up the heat a little.

Snow changes things.

What must it feel like, then, for the refugees who live in tents and sleep on mattresses in below freezing temperatures?  

1.4 million people will live in the refugee camps. 

Another 7.6 million will spend their winters in need in Syria itself. They will survive - or not - based on the provision of international aid.

Some read the stories of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and think, “Not our problem.”  Or worse, “there but by the grace of God…” 

But, it’s not the grace of God.  It’s a political choice.  It’s a political choice by the international community.  It’s a political choice by the US.

Why must refugees sleep in tents not designed for the cold?  Because Western leaders, amongst others, aren’t willing to offer resettlement options to those in need.  Because we won’t fund the UNHCR’s response in a meaningful way that would allow for something better than what is being offered.  Because it’s easy to get distracted by the shiny, sexy things of war – chemical weapons; and disputes at the UN – rather than think about the individuals on the ground, who have fled and who need us to be their neighbors, to serve them as Christ served us.

There are one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon (there are also Palestinian refugees that predate the Syrian ones). One million Syrian refugees.  It’s only 1/9 of the Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance, and yet it represents 1/4 of Lebanon’s total population. Lebanon only has 4.425 million people, but it is being asked to house one million of its neighbors in need of help.

In comparison, during the last financial year and according to data from the UN, the US granted asylum to approximately 25,300 (p. 46) while our July 2012 population was 313 million+.  So, we granted asylum to refugees representing .008%** of our population while Lebanon is housing refugees that make up 1/4 of its population. 

We also granted resettlement to some people – allowing them to apply to enter the country as refugees.  We almost doubled the number of asylum grants with refugee resettlement.  58,238 in 2012. In total, while Lebanon took in a million people, the United States – whose national pride takes the form of a statute that literally says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free” – we took in 83,538 people.  That’s .0266% of our total population.  

We're not alone in our pathetic response to the Syrian refugee crisis - many other countries share the blame.  But we share it, too. Globally, the world rejected almost twice as many applications for asylum as they offered. 438,000 claims were rejected but only 261,900 people were granted asylum. (p.46)  

At a time when the global humanitarian crisis was at an all-time high, we – as an international community – rejected 2x as many claims for asylum as we granted.

When we do this to other human beings, we are leaving them impoverished.  In turn, we impoverish ourselves. 

Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Sigmund Freud, Hannah Arendt, Bela Bartok, Frederic Chopin, Victor Hugo, and former President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki were all refugees. The US also has two former Secretary of States – one Democrat and one Republican – it gained from granting refugee status: Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger.

We lose something when we leave people like this behind – when we care so little about those in need. We lose the potential, but we also lose ourselves, and we lose our faith. 

The book of James says “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.” 

I know this passage raises issues for Christians – a debate over whether you can be saved by faith alone or need works to be saved.  That misses the whole point of the passage, though.  James isn’t discussing how one obtains salvation – yes, he uses the word ‘saved’ but the totality of what surrounds this passage indicates it’s not about salvation per se, but about what true faith means.  Faith should be motivating for us. And what does faith call us to do?  It calls us to love.  To love God and to love our neighbor. 

When we fail to offer refuge to those in need, we have failed to love. And when we fail to love, we have failed to show faith.  We have failed to live by faith. 

It’s easy to want to bomb something in the hopes that stops the war.  That’s a one-and-done kind of “service.” It’s cheap and easy and doesn’t require us to follow up. It allows us to wash our hands shortly after we’ve bombed people.

True love, though, isn’t easy.  And true love is what the Church is called to do.  

True love stretches beyond race or religion or ethnic identity.  True love is grand and encompassing.  True love means opening our borders to those looking to resettle.  And not for a ridiculously small 83,000 people.  We should love big – love strong – and open up our arms to really, truly help people. During the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time, we should be looking for ways to find Syrians to bring into our communities.  Anything less than that is not worthy of claims that we act in Christ’s name.

A friend of mine - a Christian from the Middle East - wrote the following, and I want to use it as the start of my prayer for Syria:

This Christmas I sincerely hope that nativity scenes will not be baby in the manger but the holy family as asylum seekers to Egypt... 

Yes, next time you hear demonization of asylum seekers as 'illegal migrants', do remember.. Christ and his family were asylum seekers who entered Egypt illegally fleeing for their lives after baby Jesus' birth. 

I pray that we remember how connected we are to the plight of those seeking asylum. We need to pray for those who are there in Syria - who are fleeing, and who are staying.  We need to pray that we become better advocates for them, and that we speak out more frequently on their behalf. We need to pray that we become better at responding to this crisis.  We pray for those in refugee camps, and those who, because of the conditions in the refugee camps, are staying in Syria.  We pray for those who are starving in Syria, and those who are freezing both in the camps and in Syria. We pray for our leaders, who decide who and how many to let into our borders in the midst of crisis.  We pray for those working in aid agencies and for the Red Cross and Red Crescent, that they are protected in their work, and are able to reach those most in need.  We pray that their coffers overflow with the funds necessary to alleviate suffering.  And we pray for peace.  For a durable, honest peace that impacts all the way down. That we encourage and facilitate that peace.  That we truly love the Syrians, and that we demonstrate that love in all we do.

** When I first typed this, I made a mistake and said .0008% but it's just .008%.

Update:  I always enjoy moments when I agree with my friend Matt.  This is one of those issues, so I'd encourage those still intent on defending Phil - and those interested in Chrisitan thoughts on this - to check out his post here.

On the legality of stockpiling chemical weapons, again for the non-expert

This will actually be the second in a series of four blog posts about chemical weapons in international law.  I know this will be boring for some people, but I'm soooo freaking excited that my friends want to talk about international law!  Even if this will end within a week or so, I'm taking every opportunity I can to talk about my one true love in life.

The first blog post was about how Syria could be obliged to not use chemical weapons when it wasn't a party. This one is about the legality of stockpiling chemical weapons under international law. The next one will be about the use of chemical weapons by Israel during the last Gaza conflict.  There's a fourth subject I wanted to talk about but now that I'm typing this, I forgot.  So I'll update this post later to reflect that.  Also, at some point I'll put a little cheat sheet of international law terms somewhere.

A friend wrote to ask me about that first blog to ask how stockpiling chemical weapons could be justified when the Convention on Chemical Weapons bans it.  This is a great question that is slightly technical and relates to the relationship between treaty and customary law and I realised it was a big gap in my explanation.  Sorry about that, but stick with me for one more international law post.

Let's start with the first and most important part: Article 1 of the Convention does prohibit stockpiling, acquiring, retaining or transferring chemical weapons:

"1. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never under any circumstances:
(a) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone;"

Now, Some treaties can generate customary obligations. Perhaps the easiest treaties to point to on this are the Four Geneva Conventions relating to the treatment of people during war.  They have 195  parties. There's only 193 countries in the UN. This means if you're a newbie country,* you're more likely to agree to the Geneva Conventions than you are to the UN Charter.

And non-countries or wanna-be countries sometimes sign on to the Geneva Conventions because they find the protection offered there appropriate. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation agreed to adhere to the Geneva Conventions in 1989, more than 20 years before they would be recognised as a country (though not a member) by the United Nations General Assembly.

It would be really hard for a country to be recognized as independent and not sign onto the Geneva Conventions or abide by them even if they aren't a party.  They've also been incorporated into domestic laws and military manuals and are often recognized by countries as customary law. In that sense, the treaty obligations themselves have become customary international law. The exact extent of this obligation is still debated in the international law community (though the International Committee of the Red Cross** (ICRC) has a super nifty, pretty authoritative guide on customary international law in this area).

The Chemical Weapons treaty may be customary law on its own.  I'm just haven't previously been convinced that it is. The obligation to not use chemical weapons is clearly customary, but I haven't previously been convinced the obligations about stockpiling are yet. That said, this last debate on Syria may now convince me otherwise. Here's how:

States often used, relied upon and noted the Convention as a reason for not stockpiling. While this means they recognize an obligation not to stockpile, their reason for being legally bound appears to be just the treaty. They didn't seem to suggest there was an independent reason for not stockpiling these weapons, and other states didn't seem to suggest the mere stockpiling by these states was a danger.  When the US talked about Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction, it was accompanied by accusations that Iraq was likely to use them in the future because it has used them in the past (something we apparently didn't mind so much the first time but really feared happening again). There have been very few discussions about stockpiling weapons that weren't actually about the use of chemical weapons. On this, states often did note independent reasons for not  using chemical weapons, but the stockpiling wasn't really discussed as much.

With the Syria case, though, the US came out hard against the stockpiling by Syria, stating that for Syria to avoid US intervention, it needed to turn over and destroy its chemical weapons. Syria denied even stockpiling, suggesting it finds itself bound to not stockpile chemical weapons as well.  With both the US and Syria suggesting Syria was bound not to stockpile weapons, and most of the rest of the world agreeing or remaining silent, it would appear we're at the point where stockpiling weapons is itself an independent obligation.

But, in my opinion, that's a pretty recent development. Even the US's position on Syria's chemical weapons was initially solely about their use. We were going to invade not because they had chemical weapons, but because they used chemical weapons.  This discussion has evolved, though, this week and I think I would now say even having chemical weapons may be customary international law.

This brings me to one more important point about customary international law:  sometimes it's really hard to know what is and isn't customary international law.  We can sometimes know for sure what is customary international law, because a court with importance has said so (i.e., the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Triubnals for Rwanda or Yugoslavia), or because there's really clear evidence that is indisputable. A lot of times, though, international law scholars can make a case but it's not an air-tight case.  We have evidence, we think it's pretty sound, but maybe it's not.

Also, sometimes the idea of customary international law is massively overused.  International law is only binding if a state consents to it. Both customary law and treaty are ways in which states consent. People want things to be legally binding so in the absence of a treaty, they say it's customary international law. My old law professor used to call this the "Tinkerbell doctrine": If people - meaning activists and scholars - clapped their hands enough and said they believed, the law could live.

I'm a little more skeptical on this, and think we need to be protective about what constitutes customary international law because that protects the democratic process in our own states. If the state is going to agree to be bound by something, it is constraining its ability to respond to internal, democratic changes in the future. That should be treated very carefully.

So, I'm not one to necessarily jump on a customary international law bandwagon, no matter how much I want something to be customary international law. That's why I said countries (meaning not parties to the treaty) can justify stockpiling weapons, but not using them.  I should have been a little clearer on all of that in the last post. Sorry!


Either way, it looks like we have a breakthrough and Syria may be joining on to the obligation not to stockpile, which it denies doing, and all of that makes the customary international law on stockpiling a little more likely.

*I'm using country and not the technical term "state" because most of my audience is from the US and I don't want to have to explain that one right now.

**Fun Fact: While everyone things the Red Cross is a religious symbol, which is why the ICRC now also has Red Crescent societies, it wasn't intended as such. The Red Cross was actually intended to honour Switzerland. This may be simply because the founder of the ICRC, Jean-Henri Dunant, was a Swiss citizen, but it's also significant because Switzerland was a neutral country and the ICRC remains neutral in battle, serving both and working with both sides of conflicts with complete immunity (that's a treaty obligation, but it's probably customary law). Oh, and the Geneva Conventions were obviously signed in Geneva, which is in Switzerland (yes, it's also in Ohio, but that one didn't host the ICRC founding). the Ohio Geneva and inverting the colors of the US flag would just be very confusing).  So the Red Cross is just the Swiss flag with inverted colours. Or colors, depending on where you live.

What Makes Chemical Weapons so Special (For the Non-Expert)

Let me start with noting the obvious: I have some seriously awesome, smart, amazing friends. And the more obvious: not all of them know about international humanitarian law, or more specifically the laws of armed conflict.

This is partly the product of where I grew up:  the discussion on international law in the US is a bit crazy. As one of my colleagues and I were taking the mick out of each other this morning, he said something I could really argue with:  "You can't go to an American on international law - they don't even think it exists!" (Okay, I realise no one will laugh at that unless they actually do international law; and in fairness, he went on to a much more personal and funny insult, but that was his set-up.).

This is partly the product of our history. We were isolationists.  When we stopped being isolationists, we were a world superpower, and then we were the world superpower.  So we tend to think we're not bound by anything other than whatever came out of the POTUS's mouth (or the SCOTUS's mouth, and sometimes Congress's maybe; and if you're Rick Perry, you think you're only bound by the latest thing to have come out of your own mouth).

But also, lots of other, non-US people just don't about the laws of armed conflict.  So the past few weeks, I've seen a lot of facebook posts / comments along these lines:

• "Assad's been bombing people for years. What makes chemical weapons so special?"
• "How can we hold him to a treaty Syria isn't a party to?"
• "Does this mean we can bomb anyone who messes up in war?  Because we should be careful about that..."

Now, morally, I kind of agree with the first comment, but legally, there's answers to all of these questions and the answers relate to the laws of armed conflict.  Now, I'm not going to suggest an answer to the problem of Syria but I think Syria presents a really good opportunity for people who don't pay attention to international law as part of their job to start to understand international law just for their own benefit.  So, here's my super brief answer on "what makes chemical weapons so special."  I could write a longer piece, but I can only justify about 20 minutes of procrastination on my PhD chapter.  Also, as I wrote, I could hear the voices of my friends who study this in my head, so I have a few notes for them in [brackets]. Just ignore those if you don't study this.

Let's start with some basics:

There are two types of international law: treaties and customary.  Customary international law develops when states act in a consistent manner and do so because they believe they are legally bound to do so even without a treaty.  To see the consistent state manner, you can look to both action and omissions, and can rely on public statements and declarations that accompany either the act or lack of action. Once something is customary international law, it's binding on all states except those that have consistently objected to the development of this rule.  This can develop slowly taking decades or it can be quite quick.

Understanding how customary international law works:
To give an example (which is really really really not real), let's imagine that tomorrow, the US decided that because of all the peanut allergies (which I know are really really real), it was going to ban the growing, selling, producing or importing of peanuts to protect human life.  Then it started telling other states they should do it too, that ultimately if they take the right to life seriously, they must do this. And a few other states - hippy-dippy liberals like Canada, NZ and France and Sweden - decided to ban peanuts out of respect for the right to life.  That would not be enough for customary international law.  But, if over the course of about 3 years, almost all the other states - say, 135 of the 193 UN members - all worked to ban and eradicate peanut use as a threat to human life and health, and they banned sales, and they came out with statements saying that the production of peanuts was illegal not just within their own states but across the world.  Then, with 135, you would see an emerging norm or an emerging custom.  No one is quite sure if it's really custom or not, but it sure looks like it's getting there.  And then by year 5, 155 countries have done this.  They're all doing the things to ban peanuts and stop their transport.  And of the less than 40 countries who haven't, 20 don't actually use or have peanuts in their countries anyhow.  So they haven't taken any steps because they're looking at the rest of the world going "But we've never even had peanuts, they've never been in our borders, why is everyone so obsessed with peanuts?" So this takes us down to 20 states that are relevant to the peanut discussion and who aren't banning their import. Ten of these states just don't care because they wish we would focus on something more important like world peace or the real eradication of polio. But the other 10 do care and every time it comes up they go, "No. This isn't a real rule. You're all anti-peanut imperialists and we will not be bound by this rule."  At that point, there's enough consensus that the rule becomes a rule for everyone - the 155 that agreed, the 20 that it was never relevant to and the 10 it was relevant to but didn't care - except for the 10 states that continue to say it's not a real rule.  Now, let's assume Thailand with all their yummy peanut sauce is one of the countries that consistently objected so they aren't bound.

So what happens with Canada suddenly starts trading Thailand minerals for peanuts?  The law isn't binding for Thailand but it is for Canada, who was actually one of the first to help make this a law. Canada is violating international law.  They haven't signed a treaty, but they also weren't consistent objectors when the customary rule was developing.  So they have to live by the rule that was established.  They can't come in later and go, "Oh, shoot, but we don't like that rule anymore, so we won't abide by it."  They can, on the other hand, try to create a new rule.  But they can't just ignore the old one.

How Chemical Weapons are Customary International Law.
So, those are the two types of law.  Now why this matters to chemical weapon use.  Syria isn't a party to the relevant treaties [note to IHL-nerds: yes, some could argue that the use of chemical weapons is torture and prohibited under Common Article 3 of the Four Geneva Conventions, but this post isn't for you, so stop trying to make it all complicated; yes, Dan and Sukrit, I'm talking to you.]. So, Syria can only be bound to not use chemical weapons on civilians if there's a relevant customary international law.

And there is. (Otherwise, this post would've ended a really long time ago.)  The laws of war have two relevant rules for this that are not customary for all wars. [note to IHL-nerds: yes, I know wars and armed conflicts are different, but again, this post isn't for you, so stop being nit-picky. Dan, Sukrit, and Catherine.]

Now, war is bad. Everyone knows that. The laws of war are intended to make war less bad, meaning less harmful to the innocent civilians and as humane as you can make war for the people fighting it.  It accepts that people will die.  The laws accept that people will die but it requires states to try to make sure people only die to the extent necessary, and if they do die it's from as humane an act as possible.  I know it's perverse, but countries are sometimes perverse: they don't want the effects of war, but they like blowing things up and conquering each other.  So to hit the right balance, they developed rules that limit the impact on civilians.

The two customary laws that are most relevant here are the obligations when targeting, and the use of weapons that are designed to cause superfluous harm.

When you're fighting a war, the country has to distinguish between military and civilian objects. Military objects are those that by their nature, use, purpose or location make an effective contribution to the military effort of the other side, and whose destruction in whole or in part in the circumstances ruling at the time will help your side militarily.  It's judged by the circumstances ruling at the time, so if you have a big building and last week, the military was housing all their artillery, last week was a military target and you could try to destroy it.  But if this week, it's now a flower garden, it's no longer a military target and you can't hit it.  You can make mistakes, but your mistakes should be in good faith, so you should try to confirm in advance of launching a strike that the building is still being used for military housing. This is judged by the standard of your best efforts to the extent that doesn't compromise your military objective and advantage.  So you know the building was military housing, you've asked some people, you've done some scouting, and you've seen 30 guys in military uniforms with big guns entering and leaving and no one tells you it's now a flower market.  You can target it.  When it turns out you're wrong because the guys in military uniforms with big guns were just going in to buy their girlfriends flowers, you're not liable for being wrong.

Now, in addition to the things you can target, you can also target the people who are fighting you.  In a conflict between countries, that's the military versus military, and in a conflict within a country or between the US and groups like al Qaeda, you can target the military or non-military people who fight.  They don't necessarily need to be fighting right at that exact moment, but they need to be the people who are fighting.  [IHL law nerds: no, I'm not going to discuss the complexities of DPH. Suck it up, Dan, Sukrit, Catherine, and Gilles-Phillippe.]

You can never target civilians or civilian objects.  It's prohibited.  It's so fundamentally prohibited it's the most prohibited you can get in international law.  It's Charles Manson-Jeffrey Dahmer-Ariel Castro prohibited.

Once you've targeted a military thing, you have to use weapons that can distinguish between the civilian object and the military. Again, this isn't a strict standard, but you need to work to your capabilities, and if you can't completely distinguish, then you need to make sure that the impact on civilians doesn't outweigh the advantage you gain. This is a fluid thing and it's not a 1:1 ratio. If you are targeting something really important - like the Department of Defense ("DOD") - if you might be able to justify killing 100 or 500 civilians, whereas if you're targeting a checkpoint on the road, you might be able to justify killing only 1 civilian. If you can, you should alter your plans to make sure the damage to civilians is as little as possible.  So if a market is operating across the street from the DOD and it only operates from 9-5 and you can just as easily attack at 6 as you can at 3pm, and you aren't sacrificing your only opportunity to to attack well, you should wait until 6.  [IHL-nerds: yes, I just discussed both distinction and proportionality and tried to pretend it was just distinction, but stop being so mean, Sukrit, Dan, Catherine, Gilles-Phillippe, Selbi, Hanneke and Laureen.]

• The short answer:  Chemical weapons can't distinguish usually. That's the thing about chemicals - you spray them out and they just go and go and go. They're not like a bomb or a bullet, they don't hit something and then stick.  So, they don't distinguish and they aren't proportionate.

Why Chemical Weapons are Extra Bad Compared to Other Weapons.

The other relevant customary international law is a prohibition on the use of weapons that cause superfluous harm. We want weapons that kill as humanely as possible. Yes, bombs and bullets and tanks can leave you paralyzed, but they aren't designed to leave you paralyzed. They're designed to make you die (or get you to surrender).  Again, we know war is hell and we know that people will die, but we just want it to be as limited of a hell as we can have. So if something is designed to leave you in pain rather than to kill you, it's not legal.

• The short answer:  Chemical weapons aren't designed to kill you, or to kill you quickly.  They are designed to make you suffer. Sarin gas is designed to kill your nerves, making you writhe in pain until your body shuts off.  Yes, it can sometimes work faster than other times, but it's purpose is an evil, awful one.  It's designed to bring out the worst hell war can offer.   

Even Beyond the General, there's Probably a Specific Customary International Law.

No one justifies using chemical weapons.  We can justify owning them and stockpiling them as a deterrent, but no one actually justifies using them. Not even Hussein or Assad prior to, well, when they didn't like that rule anymore.  When they are used, they're denied (as we've seen in Syria), or people blame one another (as in Syria), or they are prosecuted.

Chemical weapons use is, thankfully, very rare, and no one actually goes around saying, "Dude, love the ability to use chemical weapons on people" or even "Seriously, it's totally fine to use chemical weapons."  Everyone says they can't / won't / don't and when they do, they still say they can't / won't and don't.

You can compare this to bombs and bullets. No one ever goes around saying "bullets are illegal! So are tanks and bombs!"  And by "no one" I mean no one other than pacifists and no one speaking on behalf of their country.

So we have a pretty consistent state practice (not using chemical weapons) with a definite assertion that it's illegal (shown by denials when they are used).  So chemical weapons are also specifically prohibited, making them different than other weapons.

Who Enforces This?

Whoever is using the chemical weapons is definitely breaking a law that it is definitely bound to not break and that it definitely knows that it is breaking.  Oh, yeah - I forgot to mention. The rules above also apply to non-state actors, so even though the US thinks it's Assad and Russia says it's the other guys, it doesn't matter.  Someone - whoever used the chemical weapons - is breaking the law.

Now, as to who enforces this... ummmmmm.... so, yeah, kind of no one, and kind of the UN Security Council (UNSC).  Which is why Obama feels that someone should and since he can't get the UNSC to do it, he will. Or might. Maybe. Depending on Congress and France say.

But just because it's not enforced doesn't mean it's not a law.  Think about how many times you've sped on your local highway!