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TENTH UNITED NATIONS CONGRESS ON THE PREVENTION OF CRIME AND THE TREATMENT OF OFFENDERS

Press Kit
Fact Sheets No1

Draft United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime

Over the past decade, transnational criminal groups have built up huge global networks, which now make vast profits through a wide range of illicit and threatening acts.

    Criminal groups traffic in human beings, particularly women and children, for economic slavery and prostitution. They smuggle arms and ammunition, traffic in illegal drugs and nuclear material, commit fraud on a global scale and launder huge sums of money. They corrupt and bribe public officials, politicians and business leaders.

    Agreeing that organized crime has become too widespread for single Governments to fight, nations have joined forces in proposing a powerful new treaty -the draft United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and its three draft protocols against trafficking in illegal firearms, migrants and persons, especially women and children.

    The proposed treaty -currently being drafted by a special committee established by the General Assembly -will be a major item of discussion at the Tenth Crime Congress. The draft treaty should be ready for adoption by the Millennium General Assembly in the year 2000. (The convention and protocols summarized here are still being negotiated and are therefore subject to change.)
Under the proposed treaty, Governments would:

  • Criminalize offences committed by organized crime groups, including corruption and corporate or company offences;
  • Crack down on money-laundering and the proceeds of crime;
  • Speed up and widen the reaches of extradition;
  • Protect witnesses testifying against criminal groups;
  • Tighten cooperation to seek out and prosecute suspects;
  • Boost prevention of organized crime at the national and international levels;
  • Develop a series of protocols containing measures to combat specific acts of transnational organized crime.


Criminalizing organized crime

The new treaty would seek to align national laws in criminalizing acts committed by organized criminal groups. Under the convention, this behaviour would include organizing, directing or aiding serious offences committed by an organized criminal group. And it would include agreeing with one or more other persons to commit a serious crime for financial or other material gain.

    The convention would also criminalize acts of corruption, which in some countries have greatly aided the rapid growth of organized crime. Corrupt acts would include bribing or offering to bribe public officials to perform in a manner contrary to their official duties. Likewise, public officials who solicited or accepted bribes would be liable for corruption charges.

    For the first time in an international convention, companies and corporations would become liable for taking part in or profiting from serious crimes involving an organized criminal group as well for money-laundering activities. These business entities would be punished appropriately and suffer substantial economic penalties.

Combating money-laundering

Organized transnational crime nets huge profits, which are laundered through licit businesses or stashed in "safe" accounts. Cutting off these funds or hindering their storage could cause major damage to the running of entire criminal networks. Legal experts are still debating the most effective measures to thwart money-laundering, but the convention could oblige nations to:

  • Set up machinery to regulate financial institutions as well as to license and examine them;
  • Lift bank secrecy to prevent and investigate money-laundering;
  • Outlaw anonymous bank accounts or accounts in false names;
  • Set up financial intelligence units to collect, analyse and disseminate information about potential money-laundering and other financial crimes.
Under the convention, Governments would also separate organized criminal groups from their ill-gotten funds by confiscating the proceeds of crime or property of the same value and by identifying, freezing and seizing assets. They would also empower courts or other authorities to order that bank, financial or commercial records or property are made available or seized.

Extraditing criminals

To keep criminal suspects from fleeing prosecution in one country to reach freedom in another, the convention would aim to tighten up extradition proceedings. Nations would be asked to:

  • Recognize crimes covered by the convention as extraditable, when no extradition treaty exists with the nation where the suspect is located;
  • Speed up extradition procedures;
  • Conclude bilateral and multilateral agreements to make extradition more effective.

Cooperating to seek and prosecute offenders

To tighten the net around organized criminal suspects who may have fled to foreign soil, signatories to the treaty would agree to cooperate by legally assisting one another, collecting evidence and exchanging pertinent information.

Legal assistance could include:

  • Carrying out searches and seizures;
  • Providing originals or certified copies of relevant documents and records, including bank, financial, corporate or business records;
  • Permitting testimony or other assistance to be given via video link or other modern means of communications;
  • Granting witnesses safe conduct when testifying in a second country;
  • Granting immunity from prosecution or giving reduced penalties to people who cooperate substantially with law enforcers investigating an offence and entering into like arrangements with witnesses from one nation whose testimony is needed in another.
    Nations would also ensure a rapid information flow between authorities, agencies and services as well as promote the exchange of personnel and other experts. In some cases, nations would set up joint teams to carry out investigations.

Updating skills

Governments would be urged to develop training programmes for law enforcers, including prosecutors, magistrates and customs personnel, to cover:

  • Trafficking routes and techniques used by organized criminal groups;
  • Monitoring the flow of contraband;
  • Methods to combat money-laundering and other financial crimes;
  • Modern law enforcement equipment and techniques, including electronic surveillance, controlled deliveries (allowing an illegal transaction to proceed in order to trap criminals) and undercover operations;
  • Methods used to combat crime committed through computers, telecommunications networks or other forms of modern technology.


Keeping witnesses safe

Witnesses may hold evidence crucial for criminal convictions, but the clout wielded by organized crime often frightens them away from criminal proceedings. To encourage witnesses and keep them safe from possible retaliation, nations would adopt measures to:

  • Keep witnesses physically safe, which may mean relocating them or keeping their identity and whereabouts secret;
  • Ensure that testimonies are safe by using communications technology or other methods;
  • Allow victims' views to be presented and help them claim restitution from offenders.


Preventing Organized Crime

Keeping criminal groups out of legal businesses and markets is a key strategy for preventing organized crime. Under the convention, Governments would be urged to:

  • Tighten cooperation between law enforcers and private entities, including industry;
  • Promote codes of conduct for relevant professions, in particular lawyers, notaries public, tax consultants and accountants;
  • Prevent organized crime groups from manipulating bidding procedures for public contracts as well as public subsidies and licences for commercial activity.
Under the convention, nations would seek to stop organized crime from misusing companies or corporations by:
  • Setting up public records on companies or corporations as well as persons involved in their establishment, management and funding;
  • Using court orders or other means to keep people convicted of organized criminal activities -for a reasonable period of time C from acting as directors of companies or corporations;
  • Setting up national registers of people disqualified as directors of companies or corporations.
    At the international level, countries would seek to prevent organized crime by exchanging information on trends in transnational organized crime and on best practices to prevent it. They would also take part in international projects aimed at preventing transnational organized crime.

Making the treaty work

Conference of the Parties to the Convention has been set up to assist Governments in combating transnational organized crime and also to promote and monitor implementation of the treaty. To this end, the Conference will meet not later than one year after the treaty has gone into force to agree on various measures, which could include:

  • Boosting the exchange of information among nations on patterns and trends in transnational organized crime;
  • Cooperating with relevant international and non-governmental organizations;
  • Checking periodically on how well countries are implementing the treaty;
  • Making recommendations to improve the treaty and how it is implemented.

 

Draft protocols against trafficking in women and children, migrants and firearms

General crime-fighting measures in the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime will be supplemented by a series of protocols targeting specific types of crime. Nations are currently finalizing three such protocols, which aim to combat the smuggling of migrants, the trafficking and exploitation of other persons, particularly women and children, and the illicit manufacture and traffic in firearms.

Other protocols may be considered in future. The General Assembly has called on nations to examine the illicit manufacture and traffic in explosives, for example, and to consider developing a further instrument to control this menace.

The draft protocols will be key items of discussion at the upcoming Tenth Crime Congress in Vienna.
 

Draft protocol against trafficking in women and children

As trafficking in persons, especially women and children for forced labour or "sex slavery", becomes increasingly linked to transnational organized crime, Governments have decided that a separate legal instrument -a Protocol against Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children- is needed to fight it.

The draft protocol would:

  • Unite nations in adopting measures to prevent trafficking in persons, especially women and children, as well as to hunt down and punish international traffickers;
  • Boost cooperation among nations to combat trafficking more effectively;
  • Protect trafficking victims and help them return safely to their own or a third country;
  • Inform the public about trafficking and its negative consequences C for both traffickers and victims.


Passing new laws

To tighten the net around traffickers, parties to the proposed protocol would pass new laws at the national level to criminalize trafficking in persons, especially women and children, as well as others, to ensure that offenders are punished.

    Governments would also adopt new measures to expose traffickers and victims, such as tightening borders through stricter identity checks, as well as inspecting and seizing vehicles.

Sharing information

To boost links between law enforcers in countries of trafficking origin, transit and destination, nations would agree through the draft protocol to exchange information they have gleaned about offenders, including:

  • Whether individuals crossing international borders with false papers or no documents are traffickers or victims;
  • The methods used by criminal groups to transport trafficking victims under false identities;
  • Other trafficking techniques, including recruitment practices, trafficking routes and links between as well as among individuals and trafficking groups.


Protecting the victims

While the draft protocol would crack down on traffickers, it also stresses that trafficking victims should be better protected than in the past. The draft protocol would oblige nations to:

  • Consider immigration laws permitting victims of trafficking to remain on their territory, temporarily or permanently;
  • Give housing, education and care to child victims in governmental custody;
  • Accept and aid, without delay, the return of trafficking victims who are nationals or residents of that nation;
  • Inform victims about relevant court and other proceedings against offenders and ensure victims' privacy;
  • Enable victims to seek compensation for damages, including fines, penalties or forfeited proceeds as well as restitution from offenders.


Informing the public

The draft protocol emphasizes that Governments should seek to prevent trafficking, in addition to hunting down and punishing traffickers. It would urge them to adopt social policies and programmes to prevent trafficking and the revictimization of trafficked persons, especially women and children.
Nations would also stage information campaigns about trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to warn potential victims and discourage budding traffickers. These campaigns would focus on:

  • Information about potential victims;
  • The causes and consequences of trafficking;
  • The penalties for trafficking as well as the risks C to life and health C faced by the victims.
Draft protocol against the smuggling of migrants

Migrating in search of a better life is an accepted practice and not a problem of transnational organized crime. In recent years, however, transnational organized crime groups have developed highly sophisticated networks to smuggle migrants, exploiting human misery and making sizeable criminal profits in the process.

    The draft Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea aims to criminalize the smuggling of migrants and those who practise it, while recognizing that migration itself is not a crime and that migrants are often victims needing protection.

Under the draft protocol, Governments would:

  • Make migrant smuggling a criminal offence under national laws;
  • Adopt special measures to crack down on migrant smuggling by sea;
  • Boost international cooperation to prevent migrant smuggling and to seek out and prosecute offenders.


Criminalizing the smuggling of migrants

To eliminate safe havens for smugglers of migrants and speed up prosecution of these offenders, the proposed protocol would oblige nations to adopt laws making the practice a criminal offence. Although nations are still finalizing specific acts to be considered "criminal", these could include:

  • Making, procuring or providing fraudulent travel or identity papers;
  • Using, possessing or acting on fraudulent papers to smuggle migrants;
  • Organizing, directing others or acting as an accomplice to use, possess or act on fraudulent papers.

Cracking down on smuggling by sea

Smuggling by sea may be particularly unsafe for migrants and could place authorities in tricky situations, where they must respect international laws. The proposed protocol would oblige governments to adopt new laws that would prevent or act on smuggling by sea, which would include:

  • When requested, helping to stop a vessel of the requesting nation's nationality which is suspected of being used for migrant smuggling;
  • Confirming registry of a vessel of one's own nationality that is strongly suspected to be smuggling migrants and then authorizing appropriate measures, such as boarding and inspecting the vessel;
  • Ensuring that persons on board a vessel that is smuggling migrants are safely and humanely treated and that necessary actions taken towards the vessel are environmentally sound;
  • Using aircraft or other ships and aircraft which are clearly marked as being on government service to take actions at sea in cases of migrant smuggling.


Cooperating to prevent and detect smuggling

Under the proposed protocol, Governments would work together both to prevent and to detect migrant smuggling. They would carry out information programmes to tell the public that migrant smuggling is an illegal act frequently used by criminal groups for profit, one that can place migrants in serious danger.

They would also exchange information about:

  • Where smuggled migrants might embark or arrive, as well as routes, carriers and means of transportation that criminal organizations use (or are suspected to use) for migrant smuggling;
  • The identity and methods of criminal groups known or suspected to be smuggling migrants;
  • Methods of concealing or transporting migrants, as well as ways of illegally altering, copying and acquiring travel or identity papers used to smuggle them;
Under the proposed protocol, countries would also agree to tighten their border controls. They would be particularly vigilant about checking persons and travel or identity documents, as well as inspecting or seizing vehicles and vessels.

Learning new skills

The draft protocol would oblige nations to give immigration and other officials special training in how to treat migrants and stay a step ahead of smugglers. The training would be aimed at:

  • Detecting fraudulent travel or identity documents;
  • Gathering criminal intelligence, especially to identify criminal groups known or suspected to be smuggling migrants as well as their smuggling methods, the misuse of travel or identity documents and ways of concealing migrants;
  • Improving ways of searching for and finding, at conventional and no-conventional points of entry and exit, concealed or improperly documented persons;
  • Treating migrants humanely and upholding their human rights.


Returning smuggled migrants

Under the proposed protocol, Governments would aid and accept, without delay, the return of smuggled migrants who are nationals of their territories or previously had the right to reside there. They would also verify whether a smuggled person is a national of their territory and issue travel documents needed for that person to return.

Draft protocol against illegal firearms

Over the past few decades, the illegal firearms trade has become increasingly linked to such crimes as drug trafficking, terrorism, transnational organized crime and various mercenary activities. The proposed Protocol against the Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Illicit Firearms, Ammunition and Related Materials would join nations together in more effectively combating this problem.

Under the proposed protocol, nations would:

  • Pass new laws aimed at eradicating the illegal manufacturing of firearms, tracking down existing illicit weapons and prosecuting offenders;
  • Cooperate to prevent, combat and eradicate the illegal manufacturing and trafficking of firearms;
  • Tighten controls on the export and import of firearms;
  • Exchange information about illicit firearms.

Hunting down firearms and offenders

   To speed up the hunt for illegal firearms and crack down on the manufacturers as well as traffickers of these weapons, countries could be obliged to pass new laws under the draft protocol which would:

  • Criminalize the manufacturing and trafficking of illegal firearms;
  • Confiscate firearms that have been illegally manufactured or trafficked;
  • Hold information for ten years that is needed to trace and identify illicitly manufactured and trafficked firearms, including the manufacturer's markings, country and date of issuance, date of expiry and countries of export or import;
  • Register and approve brokers for the manufacture, export, import or transfer of firearms;
  • Mark each firearm, when manufactured, with a serial number as well as the manufacturer's name and location;
  • Mark confiscated firearms kept for official use.


Controlling the flow of firearms

    Import/export controls on transporting firearms from one country to another vary considerably. At some borders, traffickers can slip illegal weapons through with little risk of detection. Nations are still debating controls that they would be obliged to adopt under the protocol, but these could include:

  • Setting up an effective system for the export, import and international transit licensing of firearms;
  • Confirming that firearms are licensed or authorized by importing countries before granting export licences;
  • Refusing to allow the transit, re-export, retransfer or trans-shipment of firearms to any destination without written approval from the exporting country and licences from receiving nations;
  • Strengthening controls at export points for firearms.


Cooperating to track down traffickers and firearms

    Under the protocol, Governments would agree to cooperate at the bilateral, regional and international levels to prevent, combat and eradicate the illegal manufacture and trafficking of firearms. Such cooperation would include:

  • Appointing a contact body to act as liaison with other nations;
  • Seeking cooperation from manufacturers, dealers, importers, exporters and commercial carriers of firearms;
  • Setting up programmes to assist officials from different nations with training and technology, which would include identifying and tracing firearms, gathering intelligence and boosting the skills of border control personnel.
    To expand their knowledge about firearms and trafficking, nations would exchange information about:
  • Authorized producers, dealers, importers, exporters and carriers of firearms;
  • Ways of concealing the illegal manufacturing and trafficking of firearms and how to detect them;
  • Routes used by criminal groups trafficking in firearms;
  • Techniques, practices and laws to combat the money-laundering of proceeds from illegal firearms;
  • Tracing illicit firearms.

 

Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information
DPI/2088/D March 2000