United Nations: The Convention was signed twenty years ago. Thanks to that signature today each State no longer conducts a solitary battle against the mafias. The aim is to strengthen cooperation.
Dear Director, these days mark the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Untoc). It is a milestone for multilateralism, whose founding document was opened for signature in Palermo in December 2000. The fundamental intuition was the need for more effective international judicial and police cooperation instruments to fight against transnational organised crime.
Thanks to that Convention today each State no longer conducts a solitary battle against this odious phenomenon (which, after all, defies borders) but can count on the other countries’ collaboration and share national competences and experiences. It is always thanks to the Palermo Convention, to which 190 countries out of the 193 UN Member States have adhered, that the international community’s response to organised crime, in its many forms, has seen a significant qualitative increase in recent years, also as a result of the innovative instruments introduced to support the activities carried out by law enforcement agencies: joint investigation teams, controlled deliveries, electronic surveillance, undercover operations, witness protection, magistrates and liaison officers, special investigative techniques; specific training for operators, capacity building and technical assistance, to name but a few.
We owe this extraordinary result to Giovanni Falcone’s vision. Interpreting the national police and justice system’s daily effort and effectiveness, he understood how only the broadest possible international cooperation could inflict heavy defeats on the mafias, which notoriously take advantage of the different regulations and operating standards between countries to pursue their interests. A few weeks before his assassination, the judge had attended the first UN session on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna. There, he forcefully called for a global commitment to the fight against the Mafia.
Last October Untoc approved the “Falcone resolution” submitted by Italy, which recognises its pioneering role and how his “work and sacrifice paved the way for adopting the Convention”. In the light of the economic dimension of organised crime, signatory States were called upon to strengthen cooperation in the confiscation of assets resulting from criminal activities, including money laundering and corruption, and to provide for the social use of confiscated assets.
Just like twenty years ago, today there is the most extraordinary commitment to supporting the Palermo Convention. Its topicality does not exempt us from continuing to work to overcome problematic issues and make the regulatory and operational instruments envisaged even more effective.
Over the years, it has also broadened its scope to counter new global emergencies such as human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and the arms market. Yet, there is no doubt that the Convention can also be used to combat all the most severe and new forms of crime, especially those related to the Internet’s use. To effectively achieve this objective, the use of the most modern technologies, especially in collecting evidence, becomes unavoidable to overcome the barriers that can hinder investigations.
It is Italy’s task to build on the experience and many results achieved over the past twenty years, adapting existing instruments to a continually evolving world in which even crime takes on new and insidious forms, as demonstrated in recent months by the professional and timely attempts to exploit the pandemic for criminal purposes.
Hence we must, at first, step up efforts against transnational threats and
emerging phenomena. Still, it is also necessary to strengthen the exchange of information to combat terrorism and incitement, recruitment, and radicalisation even through the web.
Italy will participate in the 14th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Kyoto next March. There, the lines of action already tested with the Palermo Convention will be put in place, looking at the objectives of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. Also in view of this event, on the twentieth anniversary of the Palermo Convention, we want to see a renewed reflection by the signatory States and the commitment to further cooperation in the fight against organised crime in all its manifestations.
For our part, we can only ensure that we will continue to provide a relentless contrast to all mafias at an international level. In this action, the Italian State is at the forefront.
«Men pass by, ideas remain and continue to walk on other men’s legs», Giovanni Falcone used to say. Today we can proudly say that his ideas continue to walk on the legs of women and men from 190 countries in the world.
