On November 16 & 17, 2020, the NATO Allied Tactical Publication-103 (ATP103) Writing Team members met online and adjudicated 39 substantial comments it previously raised, largely improving the draft of the last three chapters of the publication. This collective work is one important step toward the finalization of the ATP-103 due in February 2021.

 As the custodian of the ATP103, early this week, the NATO Stability Policing Centre of Excellence in Vicenza (Italy) convened electronically the members of the ATP-103 WT and led an online meeting. Several NATO national bodies and entities were represented, namely, the Office of the Provost Marshall at SHAPE, the NATO Military Police Centre of Excellence, the NATO Rapid Deployable Corps – Italy, the Royal Canadian Navy Provost Marshall Office, the NATO Affairs Office of the Turkish Gendarmerie and the Dutch Royal Maréchaussée Education, Training and Knowledge Centre, apart from the NATO SP COE. The team members adjudicated the comments and amendments raised through a previous review of the drafted last three chapters of the tactical publication, dealing with the “Replacement and/or Reinforcement of Indigenous Police Forces”. Numbered from 5 to 7, these chapters are constitutive of the second part of the publication dealing with the “Conduct of Stability Policing activities and tasks”. They tackle respectively some “general considerations”, including executive tenets, “the executive SP tasks” and as well “the non-executive tasks”.

During the two afternoons dedicated to this work, the team was successful to manage and adjudicate thirty-nine substantial comments, ranging from simple however important gender equality considerations to the reshuffle of large parts of the chapter 5, by deciding to streamline several elaborated principles. The team as well agreed not to distinguish the executive activities and tasks into two sub-categories (administrative/judicial), provided that an additional paragraph would explain this legal partition and the role of deployed SP assets in collaboration with the Host Nation civilian competent authorities while performing an executive task. Other points of interest were about mentioning the specific management of an IED crime scene, as well identifying agitators during a Crowd and Riot control (CRC). Last but not least, the team agreed on the necessity to address properly the need to report to the competent authority on an allegedly criminal identified during the vetting phase of the Indigenous Police Force applicants.

As a result, the Doctrine and Standardization Branch (DSB) of the NATO SP COE is now redrafting the chapters according to this very important adjudication work of the WT, aiming at finalizing this tactical publication by February 2021.