International efforts to legalize the use of less-lethal weapons

Abstract

The manufacture and sale of a wide range of “less-lethal weapons” has become a real expanding industry and the weapons promoted in this category have different characteristics, injury mechanisms, and associated risks, and include chemical weapons, blunt weapons and electro-shock weapons sonic weapons, directed energy weapons, and electromagnetic weapons. The growing and largely self-regulating market for \"less-lethal weapons\" cannot alone determine the weapons technologies used by police, especially when they involve unacceptable human costs. Therefore, there is a need for clear and appropriate international standards.