Believing that it would be highly inappropriate to criminalise those who seek to protect their life and liberty in the face of violence, the General Assembly hereby:
- defines, for the purpose of this resolution:
- a "LEO" as a on-duty law enforcement officer,
- "harm" caused to (or suffered by) a person as death, life-threatening injury, or violation of bodily sovereignty suffered by that person, and
- "the defence" as an affirmation by a person suspected of any crime involving physical violence against a third party that they inflicted such violence in order to protect themselves or another person from harm which that third party would have imminently and unlawfully caused to them,
- requires that - except as provided for by prior and standing international law, future international law restricting the use of force by LEOs, and Articles c and d - member states permit the use of the defence, and only convict those who plead it if their affirmations have been disproven according to their ordinary evidentiary standards,
- recommends that members prohibit the use of the defence by any person who used physical violence against any LEO seeking to arrest them for committing a crime,
- demands that members prohibit the use of the defence by any person who:
- resorted to physical violence despite knowing about and being able to successfully use either an immediate deterrence or an immediate aversion (as legislated by the member in question) of the threat of harm,
- used disproportionately more force than was necessary to protect themselves or another person from harm which they would have imminently and unlawfully suffered in the circumstances,
- deliberately induced the threat of imminent and unlawful harm to act under the protections of the defence, or
- seeks to use it in response to accusations that they have assisted or committed acts of torture,
- clarifies that Articles c and d(i-iii) do not allow the use of the defence to be restricted where the person pleading it sincerely believed they acted under its legal protections, and
- encourages the passage of future legislation on self-defence education.
Co-author:
Tepertopia
