"I should like, first of all, on behalf of the United Nations and on my own behalf, to thank the Italian Government for hosting here in Naples this important conference on organized transnational crime. By this Conference, the international community as a whole wishes to demonstrate its firm resolve to say "no" to international crime and to preserve the fundamental values proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations.
In 1991, the States meeting at Versailles affirmed their determination to combat organized crime and to intensify their international cooperation, to that end. It was in that spirit that they requested the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme to mobilize the efforts of the whole international community. Since then, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations have constantly reaffirmed the determination of Member States to combat organized crime.
It was against that background that last year the Economic and Social Council decided to convene a ministerial conference at the highest possible level. This same Conference has brought us together here today.
This is a particularly opportune moment for us to reflect together on ways and means of strengthening action to combat organized crime. Indeed, throughout the world, transnational crime is spreading. It encompasses all regions and all continents. Organized crime has thus become a world phenomenon. In Europe, in Asia, in Africa and in America, the forces of darkness are at work and no society is spared. In rich and poor countries, in industrialized and developing countries, criminal groups are engaged in parallel activities which violate the elementary rules of law.
Once, transnational crime was organized along relatively simple lines and involved a limited number of activities. Today it is profoundly diversified and widespread. During the past few years, its fields of operation have been constantly expanding. To its traditional spheres of activity, such as prostitution, the arms trade and trafficking in drugs, organized crime has now added money laundering, the trade in nuclear technology and human organs and the transporting of illegal immigrants. And these are only a few examples of the new markets which feed and enrich contemporary transnational crime. We have now gone far beyond traditional crime, which is based essentially on local structures, generally rooted in regional areas, and relies mainly on intimidation and violence.
Organized crime on a transnational scale tends today to be impersonal and anonymous. Operating in several countries, making profits from the proceeds of its activities throughout the world, and taking advantage of new technology to insinuate itself insidiously into the machinery of national economies, it scoffs at frontiers and becomes a universal force. Traditional crime organizations themselves have, in a very short time, succeeded in adapting to the new international context to become veritable crime multinationals. Thus, illegality is gaining inexorably. It is corrupting entire sectors of international activity.
The causes of this evil are not hard to identify. The new permeability of frontiers, the opening up of national economies and the rapid pace of international trade represent progress for international society, provided that they are within the framework of the law.
As long as capitalist economies were limited to countries, for the most part democratic, which were used to working within a modern State, free enterprise operated on two principles: the market and the rule of law, the latter providing a framework for the former.
Economic globalization has greatly changed the situation. In many parts of the world, a market has developed without a State and without rules of law. A sociologist recently posed the question: "What does a market without a State and without rules of law resemble? The jungle. And what organization is born of the jungle? The Mafia."
Indeed, organized transnational crime takes advantage of the weakness of institutions and of the State on all continents. The collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union have led to a weakening of institutional structures and a loss of social and ideological benchmarks in eastern Europe. In the developing countries, the unravelling of social fabric, the marginalization of certain social categories and the erosion of moral values have also led to an unprecedented development of organized transnational crime. Moreover, as we all know, States which are at war or in whose territory an armed conflict is being waged, experience an upsurge in organized crime. For the conduct of a war is always accompanied by an increase in illegal trafficking. The expansion of these phenomena has a significant negative impact on the international order which together we wish to establish.
Indeed, the Charter of the United Nations is based entirely on the values of democracy and the dignity of human rights. Transnational crime, however, undermines the very foundations of the international democratic order. Transnational crime poisons the business climate, corrupts political leaders and undermines human rights. It weakens the effectiveness and credibility of institutions and thus undermines democratic life.
When order is in retreat, and when law, morals and democracy are under attack, all kinds of criminal ventures and deviant behaviour may be spawned. This is what we are bound to work together to prevent. The danger is all the more pernicious because organized crime does not always confront the State directly. It becomes enmeshed in the institutional machinery. It infiltrates the State apparatus, so as to gain the indirect complicity of government officials.
We also know, however, that when the States decide to take effective, voluntary steps to combat transnational crime, and when they decide to cooperate with each other and harmonize their efforts, legitimate society regains all its power and strength. It is on behalf of this effort to promote the rule of law and to combat transnational crime that we are meeting here today in Naples.
By their presence here, each and every representative of participating States is affirming the political will of their Governments to stand fast against the spread of international crime.
It is within the United Nations that the inter-State cooperation has made the most progress so far. In 1991, a group of States met at Versailles and adopted a statement of principles and programme of action on which the United Nations has largely based its work.
That same year, the General Assembly, for its part, defined the guiding principles for United Nations policy in the prevention and control of transnational crime. The United Nations established the following five general goals:
-- The prevention of crime within and among States;
-- The control of crime both nationally and internationally;
-- The strengthening of regional and international cooperation in crime prevention, criminal justice and the combating of transnational crime;
-- The integration and consolidation of the efforts of Member States in preventing and combating transnational crime; and
-- More efficient and effective administration of justice, with due respect for human rights.
It was primarily to achieve those goals that the United Nations Economic and Social Council established the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in 1992. At present, it is imperative that this body be fully operational.
Since its creation, the Commission has set up a number of criminal justice programmes. It has established an essential framework of inter-State cooperation to combat transnational crime. Another of its purposes is to encourage the implementation of United Nations standards and norms in this field, and to mobilize resources to increase the effectiveness of the United Nations in combating transnational crime.
The Commission also offers substantial technical assistance to developing countries and countries in transition. It helps them, for example, to set up their judicial institutions and elaborate their laws and procedural rules, taking into account United Nations norms and treaties. It is against this backdrop that the Commission is actively involved in post- conflict peacebuilding operations in such places as El Salvador, Cambodia and Somalia.
Through this Commission, the United Nations is currently analysing the most recent forms of transnational crime and possible ways to combat them internationally. In fact, a great deal has still to be done at the operational level. I am counting strongly on this Naples Conference to develop thinking on this question and to make new proposals for consideration by Member States. I also wish to emphasize that the United Nations is simultaneously pursuing its analysis, at the normative level, of the very concept of transnational crime. For it is important to be able to define this amorphous concept as precisely as possible. Without a definition of international crime, effective legal measures to combat it cannot be put into practice. The International Law Commission has been dealing with this important problem for a long time.
The question of transnational crime was raised during the preparation of the draft code of crimes against the peace and security of humanity, and on the establishment of an international criminal jurisdiction. For a long time, a minimalist definition prevailed. The first texts mentioned only crimes supported or encouraged by States, crimes such as aggressions, raids of armed gangs and terrorist acts.
The International Law Commission has recently turned its attention to crime and transnational crime organized without the involvement of the State. Today, the International Law Commission is concerned with transnational crime both in the context of its preparation of a legal instrument on crime and its consideration of the establishment of a permanent international criminal court. Thus, at both the operational and normative levels, the United Nations is committed to mobilizing the international community in efforts to combat transnational crime. Like you, I am convinced that today much more must be done. In this regard, it is necessary to coordinate national means and develop international means. In coordinating national action, States must harmonize the means at their disposal to combat transnational crime, both in the area of legal instruments and on a practical level.
All too often, States do not succeed because they do not know how to provide each other with effective assistance. Another reason for their failure is lack of coordination among the relevant agencies. It is therefore imperative that all countries share their information about crime, facilitate investigations being conducted in several countries, establish regular contacts among those involved in crime control, and provide legal and technical assistance to countries that lack an adequate penal code and police system.
It is also necessary to encourage bilateral agreements between States in the area of organized crime. Such is the case, in particular, with respect to agreements on the extradition of criminals. Criminals must not escape justice by taking advantage of loopholes in legislation. That calls for the harmonization of national legislation on crime. That is an important and essential step towards genuine international cooperation to combat organized crime.
At the same time, international means must be developed. At the legal level, there is today no real binding legal instrument dealing with organized crime. However, the United Nations is making progress in that area as well. In this regard, I should like to mention the work accomplished in Havana in 1990, at the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders. The Eighth Congress put forward a number of resolutions that were later adopted by the General Assembly, and provided the framework for the drafting of four model treaties, including one on extradition and another on mutual assistance in criminal matters.
We must press on with these efforts.
Perhaps it is time to consider drafting a convention on transnational crime. The 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances could, in my opinion, serve as a model for such a convention. The next United Nations congress on crime prevention, which will be held in Tunis next April, will consider ways of strengthening the legal instruments on international crime available to the international community. Here at Naples, we can promote further study and innovation in this area.
In concluding, I should like to go even further. Within societies, the triumph of international crime is, more often than not, accompanied by a weakening of law and sometimes even by a return to the law of the jungle. That is particularly true in the case of countries whose economies and democratic institutions remain fragile and hesitant.
In that regard, the United Nations activities to control organized crime should be conceived in the broadest possible terms. Such activities should strengthen economies and political institutions, that is, promote economic and social development and encourage democratic institutions and practices. Economies in crisis, or those in a delicate period of transition, require assistance from the international community in order to combat the dangers posed by crime.
Therefore, one of the best ways of preventing transnational crime is to contribute to the development of countries experiencing economic difficulties and to introduce transparency in their political and social life. If, with the assistance of the international community, politically fragile States are able to achieve stability, credibility and political authority and, thereby, promote democracy, they will be erecting a powerful barrier to transnational crime. In such conditions, United Nations activities in the field of peace-keeping, the protection of human rights and the promotion of democracy are an essential means of combating transnational crime. The same holds true for the Organization's efforts to promote economic and social development.
In this regard, the World Summit for Social Development, which will be held in Copenhagen in March 1995, should reaffirm the urgency of linking social well-being to the eradication of organized crime. Once again, this clearly demonstrates that the objectives of the United Nations for peace, development and respect for human rights are one and the same.
It is because we support these values and recognize the need to unite against transnational crime that we have come together today. I therefore see this meeting as an opportunity for us to re-state our commitment to the triumph of the rule of law over the law of the jungle. But I also see it as an expression of our faith in international cooperation to achieve the lofty ideals of the Charter of the United Nations."
Federal News Service
NOVEMBER 22, 1994, TUESDAY