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Monitoring The UN > The UN and Sustainable Development Crime The challenge faced by the United Nations in the area of crime prevention and sustainable development presents itself at several levels. At the national level, criminal activity, whether it is carried out by citizens or those in authority, impedes development by breeding fear and insecurity, disrupting social organization, promoting conflict, and discouraging sustainable economic patterns. Where official corruption is pervasive and generally known, cynicism invades the populace, producing a justifiable lack of confidence in the fair, lawful and predictable exercise of authority. That corruption also compromises the legitimate business of a nation or nations. Development stalls, tax revenues evaporate, aid money is mis-allocated or just stolen, and order breaks down. In the international context, the infiltration of global financial, legal and trading structures destabilizes the entire world economic system. The alliances that criminal organizations are forming with each other, with drug traffickers, even with terrorists jeopardize world security. Nationally and globally, then, the spread of criminality is producing a society beyond society, and beyond international standards of civilized communal life.1 The interests of sustainable economic and social development are clearly not served where criminals create an environment of instability and insecurity through the exploitation of their fellow citizens and the use international financial structures to engage in economic activity which has no accountability in terms of costs or effects. In countries where economic and political structures are disrupted or weakened and citizens find their choices constrained, crime often becomes an alternative to positive, sustainable development. The temporary disarray experienced by countries trying to restructure their political and economic systems to meet international loan requirements can provide the conditions for the rise of crime and the infiltration of criminal organizations. In some cases, criminals actually usurp state power, as they did in Bolivia in the early 1980s.2 Nations struggling to shift from one economic and political system to another, like the countries of the former Soviet bloc, are also vulnerable. Russia itself is a good example of the dangers that lurk for these "states in transition." Its efforts to introduce democracy and market-driven economic patterns have proved a bonanza for criminal organizations, providing them with opportunities to gain control of banks and business enterprises, move vast amounts of money out of the country and the economy, and acquire sufficient power to potentially de-stabilize the Russian currency. All the while, these criminals have freed themselves from the obligation to pay tax support to the national government. The overall result has been a draining of wealth and distortion of productivity.3 What is the United Nations doing to meet this Challenge? The United Nations views crime prevention and control and social development as mutually supporting propositions, and recognizes that crime finds a fertile field where structures of authority are weak or compromised and underdevelopment restricts people's choices and perpetuates poverty. Therefore, it encourages the integration of crime prevention and criminal justice programmes with the capacity building of Member States and sustainable human development efforts worldwide, in the hope of preventing the expropriation of development by criminals, to the detriment of the society as a whole.4 The United Nations oversight body in the area of crime and criminal justice is the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ). This commission, along with its associated bodies, seeks the establishment of international standards of criminal justice and the harmonization and reinforcement of the rule of law worldwide. The CCPCJ sets policy, monitors progress in the promotion of international standards for criminal justice and works to improve the management of national justice systems. It co-ordinates United Nations technical assistance to member states, including assistance in devising or reforming laws to bring national legislation into line with international standards, and promotes the exchange of information between states committed to crime control and the humane treatment of offenders. The end purpose of these efforts, and the international conventions supporting them, is to assist member states in creating an atmosphere in which rational planning for long-term, sustainable development can take place. It is also to construct a united front of opposition to criminals and criminal organizations wherever they operate. Roger S. Clark, a one-time member of the CCPCJ's predecessor within the United Nations, the Committee on Crime Prevention and Control (CCPC), has written an informative book on the context of crime prevention and criminal justice efforts within the United Nations. He explains that in the post-Cold War world, the emphasis of international concern for security: "...has shifted to internal strife, maintenance of socio-economic stability, and respect for human rights. This has led to the United Nations being called to play many new roles...where the crime prevention program was required to lend expertise in areas such as public service and justice reforms, reconciliation policy and the creation of non-military policy forces. Another aspect of this new concept of security was related to development: the non-violent resolution of conflicts, effective judicial systems and redress of grievances, all of which have been seen increasingly as a means of assuring stability and conditions propitious to development without repression. This was particularly important for countries moving towards a market economy and greater democracy." 5 For the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) security is one of the "five aspects to sustainable human development" and requires that states and systems rest on a solid foundation of the "rule of law."6 Crime and Human Rights Both the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights espouse the principle that people and states have the right to live and develop in security, in an atmosphere of respect, and in freedom from oppression from any quarter. Sustainable development requires that the right of all to develop and pursue their potential be respected. If confidence in the possession of those rights is to be experienced, everyone needs to know that they can put their trust in the authorities and the legal system under which they live. They must know that they will not be subject to arbitrary terror and arrest, criminal disruption of their lives, or to capricious and inconsistent laws. In other words, they must feel secure in their legal, economic and social rights, even when they themselves are suspected of or charged with a crime. Within the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, the concern for human rights extends to those suspected of or charged with crimes and a central and long-standing agenda has been to work to ensure the humane treatment of offenders and alleged offenders. To that end it promotes the adoption of and adherence to standards for their treatment.7 Along with a changing security orientation, the United Nations has, over time, experienced a broadening of the crimes within its purview. In its early years, the focus was on juvenile crime, prison reform and standards for the management and treatment of offenders, issues inherited from earlier European organizational attempts to reach a common penal and penitentiary policy. As the world changed and the membership of the United Nations expanded, new crimes came into the discussions, such as terrorism, the trafficking in persons, torture, corruption and bribery and crimes against the environment.8 Transnational Crime Currently, crime that is transnational in nature (not confined within national boundaries, but moving and acting across boundaries and throughout the world) is capturing a great deal of attention. This phenomenon has become an increasingly pervasive, complex and intractable problem as the new trend toward economic liberalization and globalization, coupled with increasingly sophisticated and efficient communications technologies and the loosening of boundaries between nations, has expanded opportunities for criminal behaviour. Most alarming, perhaps, is the link between organized crime and international drug trafficking.9 Organized transnational crime was the theme of the April 1998 meeting of the CCPCJ, where is was pointed out that: "Important changes had occurred in the structure and dynamics of organized crime at the national and transnational levels, including the appearance of new manifestations of money laundering, bribery, robbery, trafficking in human beings, including women and children migrants, and trafficking in stolen motor vehicles and firearms, drug trafficking, terrorism, alien and contraband smuggling, economic espionage, intellectual property theft and counterfeiting."10 Member states have been asked "to harmonize legislation and ensure their justice systems were provided with the means to prevent and control organized transnational crime," with priority to be given to the finalization of an international convention (a Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime) which will hopefully coincide with the Tenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders in the year 2000.11 Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the United Nations Drug Control Programme, who calls organized crime "predatory capitalism," believes that the new convention, through its harmonization of laws, will form the core and "linchpin" of international determination to undermine the power and reach of criminal organizations.12 Money Laundering The practice of money laundering, which makes possible so much international criminal activity, is considered a significant danger to stability and security, and has become a prime target of United Nations crime prevention work. Money laundering allows criminals to move illicit earnings through financial systems without revealing their origins. The UN Chronicle has described the three stages involved in the process. They are placement, layering and integration: "Placement" is the actual placing of
cash in a financial institution for transfer
elsewhere or the purchase of a monetary instrument,
such as a bank cheque which could be transferred. Money laundering is a particularly difficult crime to solve because of the sophistication of the financial mechanisms used and because of the lack of uniformity in legal systems throughout the world. Hence, the United Nations is promoting the revision of national laws to better provide for the tracing and seizing of illicit financial assets. With respect to the international drug trade, as long as this medium for the realization of profits is available, that business will continue to flourish. Drug trafficking would be much less lucrative and appealing if this mechanism were not available. The United Nations now has a "Global Programme Against Money Laundering" under the auspices of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention of the United Nations which is helping states to place their legal structures in a better position to combat the problem.14 In recognition of the fact that transnational crime and money-laundering are facilitated by the corruption of people in authority, the United Nations, through the CCPCJ, has also called for an international strategy to combat corruption and bribery. An International Code of Conduct for Public Officials (adopted by the General Assembly in December 1996) offers guidelines to states in dealing with corruption and bribery.15 UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice & Sustainable Development (CCPCJ) (on UNAC site). This will provide information on associated bodies and programmes. The United Nations Internet site does not provide a great deal of material on the area of crime and crime prevention, although the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) site does provide some avenues. The UNCJIN (The United Nations Crime and Justice Information Network) includes links to UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, UNRISD, and UNDCP. These sites will provide information on their activities and involvement in the area of crime prevention. See http://www.ifs.univie.ac.at/~uncjin/otherorg.html Resources 1 see Roger S. Clark, The
United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme (Philadelphia:
University of Philadelphia Press, 1994) 10, 56. |
