Governments to extract deal on torture trade

By David Cronin

Date: 09/06/05

EU governments look set to approve new regulations on the trade in instruments used for torture following lengthy wrangling over how far the restrictions should go.

While the European Commission had originally proposed EU-wide rules on the exports of equipment which can be used in executions or cruel treatment in January 2003, the member states have only now reached an agreement on the surrounding issues.

To be approved by the Council of Ministers by the end of this month, the introduction of the rules had been held up primarily by the UK's concerns that they should not weaken measures on its national statute books.

The UK had banned the manufacture and sale of electro-shock stun guns in 1998, with Robin Cook, then the country's foreign secretary, pledging to seek a global ban.

But most other EU countries have stated a preference for controls on stun guns and batons, rather than an outright prohibition.

Both the UK and the Commission had pushed for a ban on leg-irons used to shackle detainees. Yet most other EU governments were against such a far-reaching measure.

EU officials describe the UK stance as "unprecedented". But they say that the obstacle it presented has been overcome through advice from lawyers at the Council. They recommended clauses allowing countries wishing to have more stringent measures than those provided for by the EU regulation to introduce them unilaterally.

Amnesty International has published evidence of at least 63 firms in 13 member states manufacturing or selling electro-shock stun weapons in 2000-04. The Czech company Fly-Euro Security Products, for example, has supplied these to Israel, South Africa, Brazil, the US, as well as to other European countries.

In March, the New Statesman magazine found that the British ban is being circumvented. It named a south London broker which has imported stun batons from South Korea and then sold them to Zimbabwe, also in apparent defiance of EU sanctions on Robert Mugabe's regime.

Steve Wright from Leeds Metropolitan University laid the groundwork for the EU proposal with a study he presented to the European Parliament in 2000. "If there is any weakening of this regulation, the tools of torture will continue to go through European hands," he said.

Wright also voiced concern that the regulation is focused mainly on "the traditional torture technology of the 20th century". A further EU response will be needed, he said, to weapons with biochemical or microwave properties designed to inflict pain or paralysis on a large scale. Such technologies include the immobilising drug fethanyl which was used by Russian forces during the 2002 Moscow theatre siege.

Article reports that EU governments looked set to approve new regulations on the trade in instruments used for torture following lengthy negotiations over how far the restrictions should go.