Editor's Note: Marie Wilmet is a research intern in Public
International Law at the Asser Institute. She recently graduated from Leiden
University’s LL.M. in Public International Law. Her main fields of interest
include international criminal law, humanitarian law and human rights law as
well as counterterrorism.
The
Alliance for Torture-Free Trade was launched
on 18 September 2017, at the 72nd Session of the United Nations (UN)
General Assembly, by a common initiative of Argentina, the European Union (EU)
and Mongolia. It aims
at ending the trade in goods used to carry out the death penalty and torture.
Indeed, even though torture is unlawful under public international law, these
goods are currently available on the open market across the globe. By banning
such tools from global trade, the Alliance hopes to reduce the possible human
rights violations by complicating the perpetrators’ acquisition of the means to
execute and torture people.
This
initiative is part of a broader agenda both at the UN and EU level. It falls
under the broader umbrella of UN projects such as the UN Guiding
Principles for Business and Human Rights or the UN Global
Compact. Moreover, the EU has tried in the recent years
to strengthen the rule of law by conducting policies where trade
and values are more interrelated. As the EU
Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström stated,
“human rights cannot be treated as an afterthought when it comes to trade”.
This
blog will first retrace the origins of the Alliance by outlining the current
factual and legal framework surrounding torture, the death penalty and related
trade. Then, the Alliance and its ambitions will be analysed, along with the
chances of its effective implementation. More...