Additional teaching tools

Tool 1: Practices of law enforcement officials

• The Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, adopted by General Assembly resolution 34/169 of 17 December 1979.
• The Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, 27 August to 7 September 1990.
• The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions has submitted to the General Assembly a report analysing the international standards applicable to the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers ( A/61/311, paras. 33-45). The report can be of assistance in distinguishing the proportionality criterion from the necessity criterion and to fully evaluating the contribution each of the two safeguard makes.
• The OSCE/ODIHR publication Human Rights in Counter-Terrorism Investigations. A Practical Manual for Law Enforcement Officers, sects. 3.2 and 3.3, provides additional guidance and case studies on the use of force in effecting arrest and on body searches.

Tool 2: UN regional and special mandate holders

There are number of UN and regional special mandate holders with responsibility for arrest and detention issues which periodically publish very helpful outputs on challenges relating to the implementation and enforcement of arrest and detention issues, how the relevant treaty instruments should be interpreted, for example in annual and thematic reports, and determinations on cases of alleged violations of these rights. The primary international ones are:

• Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
• Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
• Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
• Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism.
• Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.