Combating International Crime

The advantages of removing border checks and allowing free movement of goods and persons have also been exploited by organised criminal groups. In order to counter this undesirable side effect of globalisation it has been necessary to step up international cooperation against transnational organised crime. The Vienna-based UN Centre for International Crime Prevention (CICP) is a leading institution in this fight. In close cooperation with the UNDCP, the CICP develops strategies to counter transnational crime, it promotes global standards in crime prevention and criminal justice, it assists with concrete projects in individual countries and it helps to draft pertinent international treaties. Despite general cuts in UN human resources, CICP received a staff increase in 2001 in order to meet the demands of the intensified campaign against international terrorism. This further enhances the status of Vienna as the UN centre of global operations against the "uncivil society" in all its forms.

The UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime and two additional protocols against trafficking in persons and the smuggling of migrants were adopted in 2000. In March 2001 agreement was reached in Vienna on the text of a further Protocol against the Illegal Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition. It was approved by the UN General Assembly in May and subsequently signed by a great number of countries including Austria. The next major UN treaty against crime will be on combating corruption. Negotiations began in Vienna in January 2002, when Austria and the Netherlands presented a draft text for a convention covering major aspects like criminalisation, prevention and international cooperation.

The UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) met in Vienna in May and September 2001, when it adopted an action plan of 15 chapters to implement the Vienna Declaration adopted by the X. UN Congress for Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders in 2000.

A Central Asian regional conference on a comprehensive strategy to combat terrorism was jointly organised by the ODCCP and OSCE in December in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, thereby continuing a tradition that was started on an Austrian initiative in 1999 and 2000. The final declaration pointed out the close connection between terrorism on the one hand, and trafficking in drugs, persons and weapons on the other, as well as the special challenge these pose for the Central Asian states. The action plan that was adopted foresees enhanced cooperation between national institutions and international organisations in the fight against terrorism.