ESSEX PAPER 3: INITIAL GUIDANCE ON THE INTERPRETATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UN NELSON MANDELA RULES electro-shock devices and restraint chairs (see UN Committee Against Torture,434 European Committee for the Prevention of Torture435 and the European Commission436). For example, the Omega Research Foundation has emphasised: ‘The electrical current not only causes severe pain, with one survivor describing it as ‘very intense shocking pain, so intense I thought that I was actually dying’, but can cause short and long term physical side effects. These include; muscular weakness, urination and defecation, and heartbeat irregularities and seizures.’437 The experts also recalled the ‘Second Essex paper’ with regard to the distinction between body worn electro-shock devices and restraint chairs on the one hand and electrical discharge weapons (EDW) on the other hand. EDWs may provide an alternative to the lethal use of firearms. However, by their nature they ‘can cause acute pain and (…) are open to abuse’.438 They must therefore be subject to strict circumscription in national law. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has expressed ‘strong reservations’ about their use in prison settings, in which ‘only very exceptional circumstances (e.g. hostage-taking situation) might justify the resort to EDW’. It stressed that even then circumstances where an EDW is used must be ‘strictly circumscribed’ and ‘subject to the strict condition that the weapons concerned are used only by specially trained staff’.439 The UN Committee against Torture has concluded that EDWs should not be part of the general equipment of custodial staff in prisons or any other place of deprivation of liberty.440 In light of this guidance, the experts noted good practice, in which legal framework explicitly prohibits specific acts or weapons such as ‘striking with truncheons’ or ‘electric-shocks’.441 The experts recalled in this context that particular weapons may be considered to constitute a proportionate response to incidents occurring outside of prisons, however, may not prove a proportionate response to similar incidents in detention due to an enhanced risk of death or serious injury that they pose in such environments (e.g. kinetic impact projectiles when used at The Committee recommended the abolition of electro-shock stun belts and restraint chairs as ‘methods of restraining those in custody; their use almost invariably leads to breaches of article 16 of the Convention’ (UN Committee against Torture, 23rd and 24th Sessions, Report of the Committee against Torture: Consideration of reports submitted by States Parties under article 19 of the Convention: M. United States of America, 2000, A/55/44, paras. 175-180). 434  CPT, 20th General Report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT): 1 August 2009-31 July 2010, Strasbourg, 26 October 2010, p. 35 (CPT 20th General Report). 435  European Commission, Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 775/2014 of 16 July 2014 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1236/2005 concerning trade in certain goods which could be used for capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, 16 July 2014, Annex 1, provisions 2.1 and 2.5. 436  Philip Yoon, ‘The “Stunning” Truth: Stun Belts Debilitate, They Prejudice, and They May Even Kill’, Capital Defense Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, 2003, pp. 383-404. 437  CPT 20th General Report, p.35. 438  CPT 20th General Report, p.36. 439  CAT SMR revision observations, para. 38. 440  Government of Uganda, Acts Supplement Noto The Uganda Gazette No. 52 Volume CV dated 18th September, 2012: The Prevention And Prohibition of Torture Act 2012: Second Schedule – Acts constituting torture, 2012, which describes them as ‘acts constituting torture’. 441  Penal Reform International and the Essex Human Rights Centre | 111