What makes things like poisonous gas or some firearms banned? Most importantly, why would nations play by the rules?
Bonus question: what exactly is a war crime and how is it punishable?
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Basically over time certain rules about how we make war have been agreed on various peace conferences and treaties that codify limitations to how states should behave for either humanitarian or self interested reasons. Part of this has been an attempt to limit in some way civilian casualties and weapons that somehow seem more cruel or more dangerous for civilians perhaps in response to their previous use.
This body of international law has been given practical power and authority by their actual use in international courts and national courts though obviously they are only practically applicable by those that have enough power to enforce them. More recently perhaps it seems that some of these rules have been used to justify not just criminal prosecutions after the fact but military action to prevent or punish war crimes for example under the authority ofbthe UN.
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