52 LAW-ENFORCEMENT EQUIPMENT IN CENTRAL ASIA AND THE SOUTH CAUCASUS
The PLAN principles have been adopted by a number of law-enforcement
agencies worldwide, as well as by other relevant bodies such as the
International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Southern African
Regional Chiefs Cooperation Organization.130 These principles should be kept
in mind when assessing: (a) whether the use of force has been proportionate
and lawful; (b) the content and structure of training programmes; and
(c) whether certain devices, by their design characteristics, have no legitimate
law-enforcement utility.
Any device that does not have a demonstrably legitimate law-enforcement
function, in line with international standards, and that is not subject to
independent and robust testing and training regimes prior to introduction
should be withdrawn from service and destroyed. Where law-enforcement
technologies are deployed, care should be taken that ‘function creep’ does not
occur, and that the rules governing their use are robust enough to ensure that
they are not used (either inadvertently or on purpose) in situations not
envisaged when they were first deployed.
II. Recommendations
In relation to the regions being highlighted in this report, we recommend that:
1. All electric-shock devices whose primary capability is the delivery of
direct-contact electric shocks, including body-worn electric-shock
weapons, should be prohibited for use by law-enforcement and
security personnel. Any stockpiles of equipment, if currently held,
should be destroyed and the use of such systems expressly prohibited
by law.
2. Scrutiny is given to the evaluation, testing, training and use of any
projectile electric-shock devices. These should not be deployed as
standard-issue weapons and the use-of-force criteria against which
such devices are held should be the same as for firearms.
3. Multiple-point and fixed-restraint devices, including restraint chairs,
restraint beds, wall cuffs and thumb cuffs, should be expressly
prohibited, and all such devices currently deployed should be
withdrawn from use and destroyed.
4. In relation to the deployment of launched kinetic-impact devices and
riot control agents, all states should declare what devices, chemical
agents and means of delivery are cleared for use, as well as the training
and standards that are in place guiding the use of such systems. States
should also declare the procedure for disposing of expired systems.
5. Governments should suspend the use of acoustic-hailing devices with
an alert or other function whose medical and other effects are not fully
known, pending a rigorous and independent inquiry (by appropriate
medical, legal, police and other experts) based on international human
130
Osse (note 129).
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents