On 29 October, UNLIREC and the Government of Colombia held a working meeting on the modernization of Colombia´s legal framework on Less Lethal Weapons (LLW), an issue considered a priority by the current government. This activity brought together 20 representatives from nine state entities, including Ministries and other institutions, such as the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Commerce and Industry, Interior and Police, as well as the Colombian Military Industry, the Private Security Oversight Agency and Customs. These institutions form part of the Colombian LLW Working Group, responsible for the preliminary drafting of new legislation on LLWs.
Following UNLIREC´s previous LLW Workshop held in Bogota in April, national authorities requested legal and technical drafting assistance. Consequently, the objective of this additional session was to present to the working group the main comments from UNLIREC’s legal team on the Less Lethal Weapons Bill, which is currently under development. This activity is part of UNLIREC’s project entitled “Combat of Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons and Ammunition in Central and South America” currently in execution thanks to financial support from Germany.
As a result, the representatives from the different sectors engaged in a debate on basic issues to be considered in the preliminary analysis of the bill, specifically those aspects regarding definitions, classification and possible control measures for LLW.