That's irrelevant. The rules are for conducting responsible research, not for pondering the potential misuse or evil use of whatever technology. Physics and bio have a far greater record of evil uses, and it was never questionable. It was accepted that scientists do science, and ask questions later. The before-the-fact crusades are a very recent (like, 10 years) phenomenon limited to the west coast of the US
I'm from Europe, for the record :)
That said, you're right, of course there are no laws regulating the potential misuse or evil use of research results.
However I feel we, as societies, tend to feel that researchers have some kind of moral responsibility in the use of their discoveries. That somehow, the researchers working on nuclear bombs are not entirely unrelated to its use – and, on the other side, that Alexander Fleming deserves some moral credits for the uses of penicillin.
My point is that in software engineering we are usually held responsible neither by law or by this shared understanding.