... And what does this have to do with using White Phosphorus?
that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The only line I could find that even relates to the War in Iraq is this one, and doesn't apply for two reason:
- The official reason has nothing to do with religion.
- The treaty you reference is applied to Trippoli, in Libya, which is next to Niger, and therefore really doesn't apply.
Also, when the US signed the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, it made a reservation about Article 7, the most applicable part quoted here:
When one of the parties to a conflict is not bound by an annexed Protocol, the parties bound by this Convention and that annexed Protocol shall remain bound by them in their mutual relations
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, defines a reservation as:
unilateral statement, however phrased or named, made by a State when ratifying, acceding or succeeding to a treaty, whereby it purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to that State (provided that such reservations are not incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty)
So to sum it up, we said that if we were at war with a country and they were not signers of the treaty, we can ignore it as we see fit (within reason). IMO, all bets were off the moment they started violating other agreements.