PART I.  SETTING THE BOUNDARIES FOR THE USE OF FORCE IN LAW ENFORCEMENT Precaution It is important to underline that law enforcement actors at all levels should take precautions to avoid or minimize the use of force, that is, make a conscious effort—prior to the escalation of events—to minimize to the greatest extent possible the likelihood of using force. This requires above all effective planning prior to law enforcement operations. As the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions remarked: “Once a situation arises where the use of force is considered, it is often too late to rescue the situation. Instead, in order to save lives, all possible measures should be taken ‘upstream’ to avoid situations where the decision on whether to pull the trigger arises, or to ensure that all the possible steps have been taken to ensure that if that happens, the damage is contained as much as is possible.”52 Accountability Under the principle of accountability, States, law enforcement agencies and their officials should take responsibility for inappropriate use of force and answer to their victims. States should set up “a system of internal and external checks and balances aimed at ensuring that [law enforcement agencies] carry out their duties properly and are held responsible if they fail to do so”.53 Law enforcement agencies should be subjected to appropriate control and oversight of their compliance with the legal and operational framework governing their functioning and be held accountable for the fulfilment of their duties, including with regards to their use of force. Part V of this resource book will go more in-depth into the legal and practical meaning of accountability.54 For accountability purposes, the lawful objective of using force and the steps to take in the aftermath of using force must be captured in applicable regulations. Principles 5, 6, 10, 11 of the BPUFF lay out the measures that should be adopted to minimize the adverse consequences that may result from it: • Exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offence and the legitimate objective to be achieved. • Minimize damage and injury, and respect and preserve human life. 52  See Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (A/HRC/26/36), 1 April 2014, para. 63: “A failure to take proper precautions in such a context constitutes a violation of the right to life. In McCann and Others v. the United Kingdom, for example, the European Court of Human Rights (application No. 18984/91, 27 September 1995) held that the use of lethal force by soldiers who erroneously but in good faith believed that a group of terrorists were about to trigger an explosion did not violate the right to life, but that the lack of control and organization of the operation as a whole did violate the right.” 53   See UNODC Resource book on Police Accountability, Oversight and Integrity, 2011 at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/crimeprevention/PoliceAccountability_Oversight_and_Integrity_10-57991_Ebook.pdf 54  When courts are called to assess post hoc whether the use of force by law enforcement in a specific situation was consistent with the guiding principles for the use of force, allowance may need to be made for the emergency nature of the decisions law enforcement officers are called to take in dangerous situations, without benefitting from the opportunity to reflect calmly and the hindsight knowledge that the Court will have when assessing whether the decision taken was right or wrong. (See United States Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989): “The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving – about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.”) 19