4.0 THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF 4. THE RESPONSIBILITIES COMPANIES OF COMPANIES 4.1 THE TRADE IN LAW ENFORCEMENT EQUIPMENT Law enforcement equipment is manufactured and promoted around the world by a wide range of companies. Some are large state-owned enterprises; many are small businesses that are not publicly listed and do not publish financial or trade data. A minority of states regulate the trade in certain relevant types of law enforcement equipment.42 Few, however, provide public information on this licensed trade, and where made public this information is often only partial and infrequent.43 Consequently, there are no accurate, independently verifiable, global figures on the number of companies involved in the manufacture, promotion, and supply of law enforcement equipment of concern. Certain commercial organizations have attempted to forecast market developments and give an indication of the current scale in the global trade in “non-lethal” weapons.44 For example, according to Allied Market Research, “the non-lethal weapons market is expected to garner $9,656 million by 2022, registering a compound growth rate of 8% during the forecast period 2016-2022”.45 Owing to lack of reliable data and disparities in reporting practices, any such estimates should be treated with caution. NGOs, including Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation, along with human rights activists and journalists have pieced together aspects of the trade through open source investigations of equipment filmed or photographed at protest sites and documented in places of detention.46 Equipment sales have tended to follow historical colonial ties – for example, French equipment is found widely in Francophone Africa and Lebanon – as well as regional influence, hence the predominance of manufactured or licenced equipment from Brazil, Spain and the USA across Latin America or of Chinese equipment in Africa.47 While companies based in large manufacturing states such as China, the USA and major European states dominate parts of the market, companies in emerging economies, such as Brazil and Turkey, also produce for their domestic market and export widely. Increasingly sophisticated law enforcement equipment is now evident in most parts of the world. 42 UN, Report of the Secretary General, Towards torture-free trade: examining the feasibility, scope and parameters for possible common international standards, UN Doc. A/74/969, 28 July 2020, paras 6-8, (hereinafter, UN, Report of the Secretary General, Towards torture-free trade) www.undocs.org/en/A/74/969 43 On lack of transparency, see, for example, Omega Research Foundation, Tools of Torture and Repression In South America: use, manufacture and trade, June 2016, p. 5, https://omegaresearchfoundation.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Publications/ South%20America%20Report_ENG_FINAL.pdf; Omega Research Foundation, Review of the EU Anti-Torture Regulation and its implementation, November 2020. 44 Amnesty International, the Omega Research Foundation, the UN and other intergovernmental bodies use the term “less lethal weapons” to reflect the fact that there have been fatalities as a result of the misuse of these weapons – particularly due of blunt trauma head injuries from misdirected projectiles. 45 Allied Market Research, Non-Lethal Weapons Market- Global Opportunity Analysis And Industry Forecast, 2014–2022, www.alliedmarketresearch.com/press-release/non-lethal-weapons-market.html 46 Amnesty International, Police Riot Gear, Old and New, (Digital Verification cases studies, 8 September, 2020), citizenevidence. org/2020/09/08/police-riot-gear-old-and-new/; Forensic Architecture, Detecting tear gas: vision and sound, 20 February, 2020, https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/detecting-tear-gas 47 See, for instance, Omega Research Foundation, Tools of Torture and Repression in South America: Use, manufacture and trade, July 2016, omegaresearchfoundation.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Publications/South%20America%20Report_ENG_FINAL.pdf 22 ENDING THE TORTURE TRADE THE PATH TO GLOBAL CONTROLS ON THE ‘TOOLS OF TORTURE’ Amnesty International | Omega Research Foundation