International crime, executions, crime victims discussed in Vienna.

Comprehensive international policies to combat the increasing phenomenon of transboundary crime, including stricter governmental controls against toxic and nuclear waste-dumping in developing countries, were recommended by the UN Committee on Crime Prevention and Control at its tenth session (Vienna, 22-31 August).

The 27-member body, a subsidiary of the Economic and Social Council, asked for adoption of a set of principles to prevent and aid in the investigation of summary executions, stronger safeguards for those facing the death penalty, and measures to beef up assistance to crime victims.

Domestic violence, juvenile delinquency, and UN action to prevent and control crime were also discussed. The theme for the Eighth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, to be held from 27 August to 7 September

1990, was decided: "International co-operation in crime prevention and criminal justice for the 21st century".

Committee Chairman Minoru Shikita of Japan said that guarantees of human rights and fundamental freedoms were worth little if their enjoyment was threatened by "rampant criminality". Wide participation in the session demonstrated growing international awareness of the need to effectively respond to criminal activity, he said.

Crime across borders

In opening the session, Margaret J. Anstee, Director-General of the UN Office at Vienna and Secretary-General of the Crime Congress, said that law enforcement officials, prosecutors and judges all too often risked their lives to enforce national laws, "only to be overwhelmed by the enormous power and resources that organized crime and illicit drug traffickers, in particular, have managed to accrue .

Crime, she said, also "intrudes into the highest levels of industry, investment and banking", in certain instances "Powerful enough to frustrate the quest for a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth and wider sharing of the means of production".

The Secretary-General reported (E/AC57/1988/16) five types of international crime: mafia-type activity with profit as the ultimate aim; transnational terrorist activities; economic offences involving operations in more than one country; illicit import and export of national art treasures; and activities affecting the ecological balance beyond the countries in which they occurred.

Modern advances in electronic and transportation technologies, making possible instant communication over great distances, as well as massive displacement of goods and persons, have contributed to the widening of transnational crime, it was reported.

The heterogeneity of the international community and reliance on traditional but outdated concepts regulating international criminal law had hindered effective action against such crime. Purely domestic policies and strategies were insufficient to deal with the threat.

He recommended elaboration of an international extradition treaty; expansion of jurisdiction; better cooperation between law enforcement bodies; mutual judicial assistance; and criminalization of illicit traffic in cultural property.

Arbitrary execution

The Committee approved a set of draft principles for adoption by the Economic and Social Council to help in the prevention and investigation of extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions. States would be asked to ban such executions, instead recognizing them as criminal offences.

Prompt and impartial investigation of all suspected cases of such executions would be called for, including cases where complaints by relatives or other reliable reports suggest unnatural death.

The Committee also recommended that States bring the principles to the attention of law enforcement and criminal justice officials, military personnel, lawyers, members of the executive and legislative bodies of the Government and the general public.

In a report (E/AC.57/1988/5) on the subject, the Secretary-General stated that exceptional circumstances, such as a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, would not justify such executions. He also wanted international standards to ensure investigations were conducted in all cases of suspicious death, in particular those suffered at the hands of law enforcement agencies; more awareness on the part of police of the general principles of law and human rights; and improved investigative techniques and methodologies.

[Death penalty]

The Committee called for steps to strengthen the nine Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty, adopted in 1986 by the Economic and Social Council.

The Safeguards were approved on the understanding that they would not be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment.

Other action The Committee also wanted:

* Adoption of a set of 15 procedures for the effective implementation of the Basic Principles on the Independence of the judiciary, adopted in 1985 at the Seventh UN Crime Congress in Milan, Italy.

* Adoption by the Economic and Social Council of guidelines calling for the principles embodied in the 1979 Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials to be reflected in national legislation and practices; and that the Code be made applicable to all law enforcement officials, regardless of their jurisdiction.

* Distribution of the Code to the general public and to all law enforcement officials and competent authorities in their own languages.

* Preparation of a guide for criminal justice practitioners on how to better assist crime victims, in line with the 1985 Declaration of Basic Principles of justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power, also adopted in Milan.

* Further implementation of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of juvenile justice, approved by the General Assembly in 1985. Known as the "Beijing Rules", they serve as a model for national justice systems, they advocate community treatment rather than detention for young offenders.

* Steps to deal with youthful drug abuse, child abuse, child sale and trafficking, child prostitution and "street children".

Domestic violence

* Comparative research on domestic violence against spouses, children and the elderly.

* Restructuring of the UN Social Defence Research Institute, to be renamed the UN Interregional Crime and justice Research Institute.

* Publication of a compendium of existing UN standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal.

* A research workshop on alternatives to imprisonment and continued work on guidelines for the computerization of the administration of criminal justice.

* Creation of a sub-committee to provide an overview of crime from an economic, criminological, social and juridical aspect.

Membership

Committee members are experts from Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Central African Republic, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, Madagascar, Morocco, New Zealand, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Sweden, Togo, Tunisia, USSR, United Kingdom,, United States and Yugoslavia.