(MENAFN- Gulf Times) At a session on "New and emerging crimes" at the UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice on Friday, speakers called for the introduction of better practices and advanced tools to punish the perpetrators of large crimes.
Spain's representative said the Doha Declaration, which delegates had unanimously adopted at the start of the Congress, was a good framework for the coming years and it had been agreed upon after much work. As such, he said, it was inappropriate to use the Congress as a means to move away from the consensus found during negotiations.
Turning to a range of challenges in fighting new threats, some came out with suggestions on strengthening the effectiveness of national efforts.
The most practical way forward to fight transnational crime, pointed out Japan's representative, was to promptly identify needs and to provide appropriate capacity-building and technical assistance.
The challenge ahead, he continued, was not the lack of a universal instrument, but existing gaps and shortfalls in member states' laws to criminalise the core offenses and to effectively investigate and cooperate.
National laws and innovative measures were indeed needed as illicit proceeds were often siphoned back into the legal economy, said Switzerland delegate while highlighting that perpetrators routinely took advantage of loop holes in the law.
One approach could be to provide law enforcement officials with specialised training and establishing simple procedures to allow police to easily and quickly exchange information with the partner states, she said, while underlining that civil society and the private sector were important partners in those tasks.
In sharing national approaches, delegates voiced concerns about a variety of emerging threats from foreign mercenaries joining terrorist groups to illegal forestry and mining operations.
With regard to the fight against trafficking in cultural property, Canada's delegate said the rise in that illicit trade, particularly from conflict-afflicted areas, had strong links with organised crime and the financing of terrorism.
Some of the other delegates provided examples of counter-efforts at their national level.
A few others emphasised their support for the recent Security Council resolution 2199 (2015), condemning the destruction of cultural property in Iraq and Syria.
A number of representatives, including from China and Tunisia, called for the creation of a new convention to fight that threat.
Illegal environmental and wildlife trade and poaching were also crimes requiring targeted action, delegates said. Many of those offences were linked to transnational organised crimes, said Indonesia's representative while highlighting that the illegal fishing trade accounted for $23bn in industry losses each year.
On environment-related crimes, Thailand's representative said his county had enacted a number of laws to address the rapidly growing and lucrative illegal trade in forest products.
A representative of the Environmental Investigation Agency appealed to the member states to ensure that legislation on transnational organised environmental crime met the threshold in "serious crimes" and urged them to increase investment in their capacity to conduct intelligence-led enforcement in targeting transnational criminal networks.
While joining some of the delegates who raised their voice against new crimes, Italy's representative said trafficking hazardous waste was an underestimated threat, posing grave risk to health and natural resources.
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