Grasping the nettle: Ending Europe’s Trade in Execution and Torture Technology 25 tates that technical assistance can and should be interpreted as applying to the use of equipment. This would clearly be relevant and important to meet the object and purpose of the Regulation, and it would be beneficial if all Member States explicitly regulated such technical assistance. Amnesty International and Omega Recommendation: We recommend that, to remove ambiguity and to ensure effective and consistent implementation by all Member States, the definition of technical assistance should be amended to explicitly include training in the use of equipment covered by the Regulation. Consequently “technical assistance” should be defined as, “Any technical support related to repairs, development, manufacture, testing, maintenance, assembly, use or any other technical service, and may take forms such as instruction, advice, training, transmission of working knowledge or skills or consulting services. Technical assistance includes verbal forms of assistance and assistance provided by electronic means;” [Additional text in bold]. Technical assistance including training related to Items listed in Annex III or IIIa: Under Article 7a of its Proposals, the Commission has recommended that the control of technical assistance be extended to Annex III goods, so that, “A supplier of technical assistance shall be prohibited from supplying to any person, entity or body in a third country technical assistance in relation to goods listed in Annex III, irrespective of the origin of such goods, if the supplier of such assistance knows or has grounds for suspecting that some or all of the relevant goods are or may be intended to be used for torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in a country that does not belong to the customs territory of the Union.”103 The Commission has also proposed a similar amendment under Article 7d that would extend such provisions to Annex IIIa goods. Amnesty International and Omega Recommendation: We support the Commission proposals to extend control of the provision of technical assistance relating to Annex III goods, as they seek to address a loophole we have highlighted in our previous reports104 and during the expert group process. Furthermore, we reiterate the need for these proposals to explicitly include a prohibition on the provision of instruction, advice, training or the transmission of working knowledge or skills in the use of Annex III or Annex IIIa goods intended to facilitate the commission of judicial executions or torture or other ill-treatment. Technical assistance including training unrelated to Items listed in Annex II, III or IIIa: Under the Commission proposals, the supply of technical assistance would only be controlled when it was directly related to equipment covered by the Regulation. However, technical assistance that could potentially aid the commission of judicial executions, torture or other ill-treatment may well be delivered independently of the supply of equipment currently falling under the scope of the Regulation. Whilst a wide range of technical assistance may potentially have benign and malign application depending on how it is employed by the end-user, certain forms of training appear to be inherently inappropriate. For example, technical training of law enforcement or correctional facility personnel in the application of certain abusive restraint techniques and procedures - such as hyper-extended restraint positions or neck-holds – risks facilitating and promoting torture or other ill-treatment by such personnel against detainees or prisoners under their care. Similarly, the provision of training in certain interrogation methods: such as water-boarding, the infliction of “white noise”, enforced maintenance of uncomfortable positions for sustained periods, sleep deprivation and disorientation techniques, would be wholly unacceptable. The provision of any such technical assistance would contradict the object and purpose of the Regulation. Amnesty International and Omega Recommendation: We recommend the introduction of appropriate measures to control the supply of technical assistance including instruction, advice, training or the transmission of working knowledge or skills that could aid the commission of judicial executions or torture and other ill-treatment independently of the supply of any equipment falling under the scope of the Regulation. 103 European Commission Proposal (14 January 2014) op.cit, Article 7a, paragraph 2. 104 See for example: Amnesty International and Omega Research Foundation, From Words to Deeds: Making the EU ban on the trade in “tools of torture” a reality, Index: EUR 01/004/2010, April 2010. Index: EUR 01/1632/2015 Amnesty International May 2015