In this era marked by democratic volatility, spiraling prices and calls for social change, peaceful protests are increasingly being policed with a heavy hand. The risk of anti-authoritarian protest feels particularly high.
In Europe — and beyond — security forces are maintaining order through often brutal tactics, which utilise weapons and other instruments that have no purpose apart from inflicting excessive pain.
In July, the European Union quietly adopted a revised anti-torture regulation, binding on its 27 member states, that restricts trade outside Europe of certain law enforcement items and requires authorisation for companies trading in other equipment that has the potential to be misused to torture.
They must be praised for their leadership on this issue, as the only political region to have adopted binding rules.
Similar legislation has been adopted or is under consideration in Iceland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Switzerland, and the UK.
Yet this commitment is not matched in other countries, which appear to be taking matters into their own hands.
Take Georgia, where security forces late last year dispersed protesters demonstrating against the government’s decision to suspend EU accession negotiations, by the indiscriminate use of rubber bullets and cannons allegedly infused with undisclosed chemical irritants that caused hundreds of injuries and widespread distress.
The percentage of individuals who sustained serious head trauma and facial injuries from police action was also uncommonly high.
Earlier this year in Serbia, an EU candidate country, there were alarming reports that an experimental acoustic weapon was unleashed on protesters.
This caused a stampede, with protestors fainting, vomiting, experiencing heart palpitations, sweating excessively, being disoriented and even suffering from leg paralysis. Eyewitnesses of this strange weapon noted that the loud and unpleasant sound was accompanied by a sudden thrust of air and vibrations. Proper investigations are needed.
The list goes on — in Belarus, security forces have been condemned for firing rubber-coated steel bullets into crowds, and in Turkey recently anti-government protestors were sprayed with tear gas and water. More than 2,000 people were arrested.
EU states are not exempt — in France, civilians have been injured and killed by explosive stun grenades. I have also documented prohibited items on display for sale at major arms and security fairs, including in France and the UK - a reminder that constant monitoring and vigilance is essential.
In 2023 at the UN General Assembly I called on United Nations member states to introduce a global agreement to govern the use and trade in law enforcement items with the view to prevent torture and other degrading treatment.
I distributed a list of 20 different types of torture instruments that are currently widely in use, which are inherently torturous and which should be immediately removed from production and trade. All are now considered illegal by international monitoring bodies.
My prohibited list includes a range of restraints from cage beds to thumb screws. It also bans spiked — as well as electrically charged — batons and shields.
Also included are the particularly terrifying experimental millimetre wave weapons, which use a form of directed energy to inflict pain by heating the skin from a distance.
Weighted gloves – reportedly used to beat peaceful protesters in Hong Kong - dramatically increase the force of an impact and can cause excessive pain are also on my list.7 All of these items are now on the new EU’s banned list.
At least 23 European countries — and approximately 76 European companies — were manufacturing or selling items on my list of inherently abusive equipment. They will now need to adjust their inventory to reflect the new EU rules.
Also on my prohibited list — but not yet banned in the EU — are automatic multi-barrel launchers that can fire up to 36 tear gas projectiles or rubber bullets at the same time. They do not satisfy the rules on safe deployment of less lethal weapons as they are both inaccurate and indiscriminate.
More than 130 countries have experienced significant protests since 2017, with around a quarter of all protests lasting more than three months. Sales are booming. The trade in equipment used for law enforcement is forecast to grow considerably, with an annual growth rate of eight percent to $27bn [€23bn] by 2028.
Apart from the EU, major producers and exporters of items for law enforcement include China, Israel, Russia, the UAE and the USA. Companies in emerging economies like Brazil, Turkey and South Africa also produce for their domestic market and export widely.
A different world is possible, one where inherently abusive equipment is not in the hands of untrained police officers or ruthless leaders because its manufacture and trade have been banned. Where other equipment is regulated, and where states are required to sound an alarm when they observe repression of the right to protest by excessive means.
While regulatory measures in Europe are to be lauded, the trade is global.
Every protester, whether on the streets of Berlin or Delhi or Johannesburg, has the same rights to assemble peacefully and safely, and to do so free of cruelty and excessive force. A global torture-free trade agreement could just achieve that.
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Dr Alice Jill Edwards is the UN special rapporteur on torture.
Dr Alice Jill Edwards is the UN special rapporteur on torture.