APPENDIX 1
Memorandum submitted by The Children's
Law Centre and Save the Children UK
The Children's Law Centre (CLC) and Save the Children
UK (SC) in Northern Ireland are the two main Northern Ireland
based children's rights non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
We act as lead NGOs in the children's and young people's sector
in advocating for the implementation by government of domestic
and international human rights standards as they apply to children
and young people in Northern Ireland. Of specific relevance under
the terms of this inquiry is the contact we have had with the
Northern Ireland Policing Board in relation to the issue of plastic
bullets.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in October
2002 recommeded the withdrawal of plastic bullets as a means of
riot control in Northern Ireland, given their potential to cause
injury or death among children and young people (paragraph 28).
This followed on from a similar recommendation from the UN Committee
Against Torture in 1999 (paragraph 77(d)).
The Independent Commission on Policing for Northern
Ireland (the Patten report) in 1999 recommended that "an
acceptable, effective and potentially less lethal alternative
to the plastic baton round" be found (Recommendation 69)
and that "the police should be equipped witha broader range
of public order equipment than the RUC currently possess, so that
a commander has a number of options at his/her disposal which
might reduce reliance on, defer resort to, the PBR" (Recommendation
70)).
The NIO Steering Group for the research programme
into alternative policing approaches towards the management of
conflict has been engaged in a research programme since 2000 to
address recommendations 69 and 70 of the Patten report. There
is a duty on the UK government to ensure that any alternatives
to the plastic bullet being developed are fully compliant with
domestic and international children's rights standards. In particular
there is an onus on government to ensure that Article 3 (the best
interest of the child being the paramount consideration), Article
6 (the child's right to life, survival and development), Article
12 (consideration of the views of children) and Article 19 (protection
from all forms of violence) of the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child are fully complied with.
We believe that the NIO Steering Group's research
process, as well as their proposed replacement for the plastic
bullet, the Attenuating Energy Projectile (AEP), do not meet any
of the domestic and international child rights standards outlined
above. No child impact assessment of the AEP has been conducted
or even considered in order to assess its potential to cause injury
or death to children. To our knowledge no children or young people
or organisations working with them or on their behalf, including
ourselves, were invited to participate in the consultation process
in respect of the policy decision to procure and deploy AEPs.
In this respect we believe that the NIO Steering Group has failed
to comply with its duties under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland
Act 1998.
Despite correspondence with the NIO we have been
obtain clarification as to the precise role of the Northern Ireland
Policing Board in relation to a decision to ban plastic bullets
and the introduction of the proposed replacement to the plastic
bullet.
We have raised these issues with the Northern Ireland
Policing Board on two occasions, in May 2003 and February 2004,
and have found their replies on both occasions to be wholly inadequate.
In the main replies received seemed defensive in tone and simply
reiterated statements by the NIO Steering Group rather than engaging
seriously with the substantive issues we had raised. In particular
the written reply we received from the Policing Board in April
2004 to our letter of February 2004 failed to respond to the serious
concerns we raised regarding the need for a child impact assessment
to be conducted on any proposed alternativves to the plastic bullet.
Neither did it indicate how it intended to give effect to the
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's recommendation on discontinuing
the use of plastic bullets, beyond stating that it supportd the
work of the NIO Steering Group in finding an acceptable alternative.
We believe that the Policing Board has failed to
deliver on recommendations 69 and 70 of the Patten report and
on the concluding observations from both the UN Committee on the
Rights of the Child and the UN Committee Against Torture. Recommendations
69 and 70 of the Patten report are highly significant in the context
of the overall programme of change as set out in PSNI/Policing
Board Policing Plan 2004-07, which the Policing Board is seeking
to implement. As a non-departmental public body the Policing Board
is further obligated under the UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child and the UN Convention Against Torture to implement the
relevant recommendations in relation to public order policing
and its effect on children and young people.
20 August 2004
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