INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL INSTRUMENTS 29 Other security and para-military police goods as follows: a. Acoustic devices represented by the manufacturers or suppliers thereof as suitable for riot control purposes, and specially designed components therefor.75 Clearly this control is only applicable where a manufacturer expressly states that such a device is suitable for riot-control purposes. Given the range of applications that these types of devices may be used, in conveying messages, bird scaring, and so on, it would seem prudent for all states to apply trade controls to either all acoustic systems or those that are capable of reaching a certain defined decibel level, including, but not limited to, those expressly stated as having a military, corrections, law-enforcement and/or crowd-control capability. China nominally has regulations in place to control the trade in certain lawenforcement devices. However, it is unclear how rigorously those controls are pursued, as very little data is made available regarding transfers of lawenforcement equipment. Article 29 of the 1997 Regulations on the Administration of Arms Exports states that the trade controls laid out in the regulations ‘apply to the export of police equipment’. A report by Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation notes that the: Administrative List of Military Products control list annexed to the Regulations includes special purpose guns and grenade launchers and associated ammunition, armoured vehicles and special weapons used in ‘anti-riot action’. However, ‘anti-riot action’ is not defined in the legislation and this list does not include other lawenforcement equipment such as mechanical restraints, electric shock stun weapons and batons.76 In certain circumstances, judiciaries in individual countries have made judgements stating that the use of specific devices is inherently cruel and degrading and, in several cases, unconstitutional. Judges have stated that certain devices should not be used—or, if they are, only in the most limited of situations. For example, the Sind High Court in Pakistan and the Supreme Court of Namibia have both ruled that the use of bar fetters, chains and irons is unconstitutional. The Pakistani Government informed the UN SRT that the use of bar fetters was prohibited throughout Pakistan except in ‘rare cases of high security prisoners and only in full compliance with the interim orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan’.77 The South African Joint Committee of Enquiry into the Background, Circumstances and Actions resulting in the Death of Railway Commuters at Tembisa Railway Station (1996) recommended: 75 UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/392470/strategic-exportcontrol-consolidated20141231.pdf>. 76 Amnesty International and Omega Research Foundation (note 4). 77 UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Report on the tools of torture, <http://antitorture.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/07/P2-Study-On-the-situation-of-trade-in-and-production-of-equipment-which-isspecifically-designed-to-inflict-torture..pdf>, p. 6, para. 9.