In war is ok to kill people but not kill them too much?
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Basically, we think it’s icky and thus mostly agreed to not do it.
There’s many weapons banned by various international treaties. Exploding bullets, expanding bullets (hollowpoints), landmines, poison (banned before chemical warfare), chemical/biological weapons, weapons that produce fragments that can’t be seen on an x-ray (making it difficult to treat the wounded), cluster munitions, etc.
Some of these are banned because we think they’re “too much”, like the earliest one was exploding bullets (fired from a rifle, not artillery), they were banned by the Declaration of Saint Petersburg (1868).
They were banned because they produced *really* nasty wounds that doctors had difficult treating, and public opinion sufficiently turned against the idea to allow for an international treaty to be made. Similarly, chemical weapons often have really nasty effects. People are OK with shooting each other, but not OK with the idea of being gassed and dealing with the after-effects, so they banned it.
Some things are banned because they have a significant effect on civilian populations, both during and after a war. Landmines and cluster munitions are the best examples of these, although chemical weapons do also factor in here (especially so called “persistent” agents that linger a long time).
Some of this seems arbitrary, like why is it OK to kill someone one way but not another? And it sort of is, but a lot of it boils down to public opinion and what’s “humane” according to our culture.
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