International law of law enforcement

The international law of law enforcement is composed of three main elements:

• International human rights law, especially rights to life, liberty, security, peaceful protest (an umbrella right comprising a number of independent rights), and to freedom from torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment
• Customary international law as codified in, inter alia, criminal justice standards, especially the 1979 Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement OfficialsAdopted by United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution 34/169 of 17 December 1979. Melzer affirms that it is ‘widely recognized as an authoritative guide for the use of force by State agents engaged in law enforcement activities.’ Nils Melzer, Targeted Killings in International Law, Oxford Monographs in International Law, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, p. 196. and the 1990 Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement OfficialsAdopted by the Eighth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, Cuba, 27 August to 7 September 1990. A UN General Assembly resolution adopted the same year welcomed the Basic Principles and invited Governments ‘to respect them and to take them into account within the framework of their national legislation and practice’. Operative Paragraph 4, UN General Assembly Resolution 45/166, adopted without a vote on 18 December 1990. In the view of the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, these standards are ‘authoritative statements of international law that set out the principles on the use of force by the police.’ ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions’, annexed to UN doc. A/66/330, 30 August 2011, §36.
• General principles of law, which reflect core principles of national criminal law across democratic nations

Use of force by law enforcement officials should be exceptional. Use of lethal force against persons is not permissible except

in self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.Basic Principle 9 of the 1990 Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials

Last updated on: 01 December 2013