Military - new material (69)
01 January 2010
Plans for UK-France defence alliance driven by new strategic realities. Deutsch Welle 17.3.10. High level meetings between senior figures in the British and French defence establishments over the past few months have begun to lay the foundations of what could be a new defence alliance between the EU’s two major powers. The move can partly be explained by budgetary pressures. Anthony Seaboyer, an expert on the German Council on Foreign Relations says: “The lack of comparable terrorist attacks to 11 September 2001 over the past nine years shows that either what has been done was effective enough or the threat of international terrorism is simply lower than originally assumed. Both perceptions allow the conclusion to focus spending on other issues. Given these developments, the willingness to save money through cooperation has increased”. Other factors are the repositioning of the US under president Obama (who is more concerned with China) and Europe’s perceived weak involvement in Afghanistan. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5355872,00.html
From Words to Deeds: making the EU ban on the trade in ‘tools of torture’ a reality”. Amnesty International and The Omega Foundation (EUR 01/004/2010) 2010, pp. 62. This document discusses the European Union’s introduction of the world's first multilateral trade controls to prohibit the international trade in equipment that has no other practical purpose than for capital punishment, torture and other ill-treatment; and to control the trade in a range of policing and security equipment frequently misused for such ill-treatment (Council Regulation 1236/20051). It finds that the Regulation “remains unimplemented or only partly implemented in several Member States”; that “traders in some Member States have continued to offer for sale equipment which is explicitly prohibited for import and export to and from the European Union on the grounds that it has no other practical purpose than for torture or other ill-treatment”; that “other Member States have explicitly authorised the export of security equipment controlled under the Regulation to destinations where such equipment is widely used in torture and other ill-treatment, raising serious concerns about the adequate assessment of human rights standards in Member States' export licensing decisions” and that “several loopholes in the Regulation continue to allow traders in Member States to undertake unregulated trading activities in a range of equipment and services that have been used for torture and other ill-treatment by military, security and law enforcement personnel around the world.” See: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR01/004/2010/en