The UN General Assembly’s Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extralegal, Arbitrary, and Summary Executions (1989) set out the actions every government should take to prevent, investigate, and punish any extrajudicial executions. These include:  Guaranteeing protection to individuals or groups threatened with death;  Ensuring that detainees are held in recognized places of detention and that accurate information is available to their relatives, lawyers, and other persons;  Granting independent inspectors unlimited access to all places of detention at any time;  Co-operating with international investigations;  Conducting thorough, prompt, and impartial investigations in all suspected cases;  Ensuring that a thorough autopsy is carried out to establish – at the least – the identity of the deceased and the cause and the manner of death;  Protecting all those involved in the investigations from intimidation and suspending from office those implicated;  Keeping families and legal representatives of the deceased informed at all stages of the investigation, notifying them of any hearings, and ensuring the return of the deceased’s body on completion of the investigation;  Ensuring that those identified by the investigations as participants in such an act are brought to justice and that:  The justification by a person that he or she was “ordered” to commit the execution is no defence;  Superior officers/officials are responsible for the acts of those under them if they had a reasonable opportunity to prevent the acts;  No blanket immunity from prosecution is granted to those involved;  Providing fair and adequate compensation to the families and dependents of the deceased within a reasonable period of time. The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provide the following principles:     Non-violent means are to be attempted first; Warning must be given; Force is to be used only when strictly necessary; Force is to be used only for law enforcement purposes in self-defence or in defence of others; 43 5