I. SCOPE AND LIMITS OF THE PRINCIPLES ON THE USE OF FORCE 9. When safeguarding security and public order, “the police in any society will at some point be confronted with a situation where they have to decide whether to use force and, if so, how much”13. After all, “the State’s power is not unlimited so as to attain its aims independent of the seriousness of certain actions and the culpability of their perpetrators”14. Whereas there is no internationally agreed upon definition of the term ‘‘use of force’’, the UN Guidance on Less-Lethal Weapons defines it as “the use of physical means to coerce or influence behaviour or to damage property”15. Also, recent domestic legislative initiatives have endeavoured to define the term, ranging from very abstract and general concepts and/or the use of basic international principles to provisions developed around concrete examples of methods and weapons. 10. The diversity of approaches in defining the use of force demonstrates the complexity of a term that, in practice, alludes to at least four dimensions of law enforcement action: 1. The principles that should govern law enforcement aimed at serving the community and protecting all persons against illicit acts16; 2. The application of these principles in the specific circumstances taken into consideration a rapidly evolving range of lethal and less-lethal weapons, equipment and techniques for the deployment of force; 3. The consequences of such interaction on the physical and mental integrity of individuals to whom the action is directed as well as on causalities; and 4. The impact of such consequences on the effective enjoyment of rights, including the right of peaceful assembly or freedom of expression, by a wider community. 13. U  N Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, 1 April 2014, A/HRC/26/36, para. 46. 14. I/A Court HR, Case of Cruz Sánchez et al. v. Peru. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of April 17, 2015. Series C No. 292, para. 262. See also: IACHR, Report on Terrorism and Human Rights, October 22, 2002, para. 89. 15. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Guidance on Less Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement, 2020, p. 46. 16. UN General Assembly, Code of conduct for law enforcement officials, 5 February 1980, A/RES/34/169, art. 1. 5