Geneva Academy expert meeting aims to improve international law on ‘non-lethal’ weapons.
A meeting of international experts took place at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights on 17–19 May 2010 to examine the application of international humanitarian law and human rights to a range of weapons termed ‘non-lethal’. The 20 experts, who came from academia, industry, government, and research institutions, discussed the effectiveness of applying legal regulation to a fast-evolving sector of weapons that are used in riot control, prisons, mental institutions, as well as peace operations and (though so far to a limited extent) armed conflict. The event was a central component in a Geneva Academy project to look at how adequately these weapons are regulated by international law and criminal justice standards.
Discussions during the meeting focused on the capacities and use of selected weapons other than those which use force to inflict harm (e.g. through a bullet or the explosion of a bomb or shell), especially those that use directed energy (e.g. lasers), electric shock (e.g. the Taser), or acoustic effects, or that are chemical agents that act as ‘incapacitants’ or are used for riot control, such as ‘tear gas’.
Andrew Clapham and Louise Doswald-Beck, Professors at both the Geneva Academy and the Graduate Institute, gave presentations on applicable international human rights and humanitarian law, respectively. Additional legal and medical expertise was provided by two representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Other participants included Neil Davison, an expert from the Royal Society in the United Kingdom, whose book on non-lethal weapons was published earlier this year, and Juergen Altmann, a physicist from Dortmund University who has conducted independent tests on the capabilities of acoustic and millimetre wave weapons. Taser International, which makes the taser electro-shock gun, sent a company senior official to discuss the design and use of the weapons.
Some of the weapons that are often called ‘non-lethal’ are already regulated by international instruments. For example, the use of blinding laser weapons was prohibited by a 1995 protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the adoption of which was in no small part the result of the work of Institute Professor Doswald-Beck, then a senior legal advisor at the ICRC. Chemical warfare is generally prohibited by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, although the use of certain agents for riot control or law enforcement purposes is authorised, potentially allowing a loophole that could be exploited. In other respects, customary humanitarian law rules prohibit weapons that are inherently indiscriminate, have indiscriminate effects, or which cause injuries to combatants that exceed the military requirement (or which make death inevitable).
Human rights law and criminal justice standards also have particular relevance, in light of widespread use of certain such weapons for riot control, or for crowd or border control. Beyond the right to life (which can be violated by these weapons, depending on their use), rights to freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, as well as to health, to security, and to protest, can also be relevant to an assessment of legality.
There was considerable criticism of the term ‘non-lethal’ during the meeting given that many of the weapons described are either capable of killing or have actually resulted in deaths. Indeed, military doctrine often espouses the use of these weapons as a ‘force multiplier’, intended to draw out combatants into the open so that they can be attacked with other weapons. The final report, to be published by the Academy later this year, will refer to ‘non-kinetic-energy’ weapons as a category requiring particular oversight. It is intended to aid a better understanding of existing rules as well as possible further regulation of these new technologies.
