Vienna Chapter
Mr. Chairman,
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Group of 77 and China. I
am pleased to convey to you our pleasure in seeing you presiding over the
fifteenth Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal
Justice. The Group is confident of your ability to successfully conduct
the activities of this Commission and I wish to assure you of the Group's
support in the task ahead.
2. The G-77 and China would like to take this opportunity to
congratulate H. E. Antonio Maria Costa upon being reappointed by the
Secretary-General as Executive Director of UNODC and Director-General of
UNOV for the next four years. The Group believes that, under his wise
leadership, UNODC will carry out its mandate more effectively and make
more achievements in the fields of drugs control, crime prevention and
criminal justice and fighting against terrorism.
3. The G-77 and China attaches the utmost importance to the topic
selected for the thematic debate for this year's session of the
Commission: "The effectiveness of technical assistance provided to
Member States in crime prevention and criminal justice." Due to the
increasing transnational nature of many crimes as well as of terrorism,
both technical assistance and mutual legal assistance are key tools for
their combat. The outcome will have important bearing for the
establishment of technical assistance mechanisms, especially for the
implementation of the Convention Against Corruption and the Convention
Against Transnational Organized Crime.
4. The 15th session of the Commission has important items on its
agenda, that I would like to comment on behalf of the Group of 77 and
China.
Mr. Chairman,
5. The G-77 and China welcomes the adoption by the United Nations
General Assembly of the Bangkok Declaration, which emanated from the
Eleventh United Nations Congress held in Bangkok in April 2005 provided
valuable advice and suggestions to the United Nations and the Member
States in formulating policies and strategies for crime prevention in
different areas of criminal justice systems. The Group hopes that the 15th
Session of the Commission for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice will
come up with appropriate ways and means for the follow-up and the
implementation of the Declaration. Therefore the G-77 and China welcomes
the document E/CN.15/2006/7 on the Follow-up to the Congress.
6. In addition, the G-77 and China attaches great importance to the
commitments made in the Vienna Declaration on Crime and Justice: Meeting
the Challenges of the twenty-first century, and is concerned about the
lack of follow-up on the Action Plans for the implementation of the
Declaration and stresses the need to strengthen these activities and to
allocate adequate resources for it. The Group expresses the hope that the
Bangkok Declaration will not follow the same route.
7. In particular, the Group would like to recall that the Vienna
Declaration on Crime and Justice and the Bangkok Declaration recognized
that comprehensive crime prevention must address the root causes of crime.
The Group is convinced that it is imperative that any effective crime
prevention strategy should adequately address the root causes of crime
including inter-alia injustice, poverty, unemployment, marginalization of
vulnerable people and lack of education. In this context, we call upon the
international community to assist developing countries in the
implementation of their strategies to address the root causes of crime, in
accordance with the TOC convention.
Mr. Chairman,
8. The G-77 and China welcomes the increasing number of Member States
of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its three
Protocols and expresses its appreciation to the UNODC for its endeavors to
promote the ratification and implementation of the Convention and its
protocols.
9. The Convention and its three protocols provide us a legal
framework for international cooperation in the fight against transnational
organized crime. Their entry into force signifies the collective will of
Member States to promote cooperation and combat transnational organized
crime more effectively through close and dynamic international cooperation
including the adoption of concrete measures for mutual legal assistance,
extradition, law-enforcement, technical assistance and training. However,
the international community has to make further joint efforts to ensure
their effective implementation.
Mr. Chairman,
10. The Group of 77 and China attaches the greatest importance to the
prevention and control of corruption, including, inter-alia, through
effective measures for its detection, investigation and prosecution, as
well as through effective international cooperation. The economic and
social development of many countries has been greatly compromised by this
crime. In this connection, the Group welcomes the entry into force of the
United Nations Convention against Corruption on 14 December 2005. The
Group also looks forward to the upcoming First Conference of States
Parties of the Convention later this year and hopes that substantive
follows-up will result from the Conference.
11. The Group is pleased to note that until early March 2006 fifty
States have ratified the Convention and 140 have signed it. The Group also
noted, however, that most ratifiers are developing countries. In this
regard, the Group calls for the ratification by all countries, in
particular developed countries, as a reflection of worldwide commitment to
eradicate corruption.
12. The Group urges the UNODC and its Member States to pursue
technical assistance activities in relation to the implementation of the
Convention against Corruption, including assistance in capacity building
and in the preparation of related legislations.
13. The Group firmly believes that asset recovery is a fundamental
principle of the Convention against Corruption. For that reason, the Group
emphasizes the importance of adopting appropriate measures, as contained
in the Convention, to facilitate asset recovery through international
cooperation. The G-77 and China calls upon all States to extend mutual
cooperation to discourage the continuation of transactions and transfers
of assets obtained through corruption-related crimes and to act in
conformity with Chapter V of the Convention whenever such illicit assets
are confiscated.
14. The Group takes this opportunity to request the Secretariat of
the UNODC to make adequate preparation for the upcoming First Conference
of the Parties, in consultation with all States, in order to ensure the
most efficient use of the time allotted to the Conference.
Mr. Chairman,
15. The G-77 and China expresses its concern about lack of serious
attention being paid to the issue of Trafficking on Human Organs. It calls
on Member States to take a firm position, as a means to fight against
organized crime involved in this illicit trade, and to prevent the
exploitation of poverty and needs of human beings, especially in
developing countries.
16. The Group supports the idea of holding an open-ended experts
group meeting to further discuss the extent of the problem of trafficking
on human organs and possible remedies.
Mr. Chairman,
17. The Group of 77 and China strongly condemns terrorism in all its
forms and manifestations and deeply emphasizes that enhancing dialogue
among civilization, promoting tolerance, preventing the indiscriminate
targeting of different religions and cultures and addressing development
issues and unresolved conflicts will contribute to international
cooperation, which is among the most important elements to combat
terrorism.
18. The Group underscores the central role of the United Nations in
the fight against terrorism and also strongly believes that any measures
taken to combat terrorism shall comply with all obligations of states
under international law and should adopt such measures in conformity with
the Charter of the United Nations and international law, in particular
international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law.
19. In addition, the Group is strongly convinced that nothing
justifies terrorism. The Group feels that any effective measures against
terrorism must address its root causes.
Mr. Chairman,
20. The Group of 77 and China takes note with satisfaction of the
Intergovernmental Expert Group Meeting on Standards and Norms on Crime
Prevention, was held on 20th to 22nd March 2006 at Vienna pursuant to
ECOSOC Resolution 2004/28, to finalize two key questionnaires on
standardising the norms on crime prevention.
21. We wish to emphasize that the questionnaires are only tools to
collect information but the key objective is to identify the means and
resources for technical assistance in the field of crime prevention. The
focus should be on prevention of crime through social development or
social crime prevention, locally based crime prevention, situational crime
prevention and on social reintegration of criminals. We call upon greater
use of knowledge-based crime prevention policies and strategies
facilitated by generation and utilisation of relevant information and data
and support the sharing of such data among all state governments.
Mr. Chairman,
22. Taking into account the importance that States attach to
protection and the preservation of cultural heritage, the G-77 and China
urges Member States and relevant institutions to promote mechanisms to
strengthen cooperation and mutual assistance to fight without truce all
crimes that infringe on the cultural heritage of peoples and facilitate
the recovery and return of property forming part of such heritage. In this
context, G-77 and China urges UNODC to convene the experts group meeting
foreseen in paragraph 3 of the Resolution ECOSOC 2004/34, in close
consultation with regional groups.
Mr. Chairman,
23. On the issue of the functioning of the Commission and its
revitalization, the Group of 77 and China is in favor of granting
budgetary authority to the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal
Justice, commensurate with that enjoyed by the Commission on Narcotic
Drugs.
24. We are also in favor of adopting the most efficient approach for
the work of the Commission and its methodology. For example, the Group
feels that a review should be conducted to streamline the number of
questionnaires through merging questionnaires requesting similar
information and/or distributing the questionnaires on biennial basis.
25. Finally, Mr. Chairman, since there are several resolutions
adopted by the Commission each year, the Group requests the Secretariat to
provide the Commission with a report containing information on the
implementation of those resolutions which have been adopted by the CCPCJ
during its past 14 sessions and the actions which have been taken by the
Commission for their implementation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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