Crime Commission meets in Vienna 24 – 28 April 2006
Recommendation for further action as follow-up and general procedure for UN Related activities

Contents

 

1.      Purpose

2.      Introduction

3.      Schedule of meetings

4.      Impressions

5.      Tips

6.      Recommendations²

7.      UN language and terminology

8.      Photographs

9.      Appendix I       Documents, Links

10.    Appendix II      Notes

 

 

Crime Commission meets in Vienna 24 – 28 April 2006

 

1.      Purpose:

 

This paper is written

 

 

1.       to describe the schedule of the 15^th Crime Commission meeting in Vienna, as an example for future meetings

 

 

2.       as a source of information about the United Nations activities in Vienna by members of the Women’s Federation for World Peace as a Non-Government organisation (NGO);

 

 

3.       to promote cooperation and understanding of methods, techniques and necessary skills in order to effectively use our privilege of United Nations access as recognized NGO representatives and in particular the advantage of ECOSOC status which allows privileged access to certain international UN conferences and meetings;

 

 

4.       to illustrate substantial content relating to potential projects for international NGOs;

 

 

5.       to recommend further activities;

 

 

6.       to stimulate dialogue relating to UN cooperation and coordination;

 

 

7.       to show sources of UN information for further research and action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.      Introduction

 

UNODC - The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna held its 15^th Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna from 24 to 28 April 2006. International delegates from all over the world as well as NGO representatives whose organisations have ECOSOC status attended the five day meeting in the heart of Europe. The Women’s Federation for World Peace International is an NGO with ECOSOC status and was represented by three official participants, Dr Maria Riehl, Lilly Gundacker, and Irmgard Maentler. Further, Renate Amesbauer also attended in her capacity as a registered UN representative of an NGO with ECOSOC status. It was a useful opportunity to investigate ways and means of contributing to UN renewal and of establishing contacts with international United Nations Delegates and networking with other NGOs.

 

 

Background Information: As an NGO registered at the United Nations in Vienna, Women’s Federation for World Peace International (WFWPI) has five representatives who may (and do) attend regular NGO Committee meetings throughout the year¹. With the extra advantage of being a local NGO on home territory, WFWPI UN representatives could also attend the conference and participate in a wide-ranging programme apart from the official delegation meetings which were strictly controlled and somewhat restrictive. Impressions of “first-timers” are usually that it is somewhat overwhelming, it is certainly international, and it is the essence of the UN operational body.

 

 

3.      Schedule of meetings

The official meetings were held each day beginning at 10:00am and 3:00pm. The lunch breaks were largely used by NGOs and other bodies for extracurricular presentations, panel discussions, film screenings and other meetings, held in the official UN meeting rooms. There was generally an NGO organisation meeting each morning.

 

Day 1. Monday 24^th April 2006

 

Arrivals, registration

 

The United Nations Visitors Centre was crowded with international delegates who had to register for the conference to obtain a pass to enter the UN grounds in Vienna. As a local representative, it was not necessary to re-register for the conference. Pre-registration was required, however, it would have been possible to attend with a regular UN pass for Vienna. Security guards were constantly standing outside the UN building and at the entrance to the grounds, checking every individual who wanted to pass. It was possible to register a third participant from WFWPI on the basis that she was already in the UN database and a member of a registered NGO with ECOSOC status.

 

The preliminary information was made available on-line and via email information and could be downloaded and printed out prior to attendance.³

 

According to the “Information for Participants” the fifteenth session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice opening was in the Board Room, fourth floor of Building C at 10:00am. This meeting continued every morning and afternoon and at 11:00am on Monday the Committee of the Whole of the Commission began its work. It was recommended in the board room meeting, that delegations with more than one representative send the second delegate to the Committee of the Whole on the 7^th floor. These two sessions ran parallel for the whole five days of meetings.

 

There were documents to collect⁴ from the documentation counter on the fourth floor of building “C”. All meetings were held in Building C.

The topics of official discussion were Agenda Items 1 - 3: Election of Officers, Adoption of the agenda and organization of work and Work of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, considering various documents as listed in the daily journal.

 

The first NGO accessible meeting was on Monday lunchtime: the launch of the report on Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns and panel discussion on trafficking in persons, moderated by Julia Ormond.

Julia Ormond is an actress and recently appointed Goodwill Ambassador, just returned from Ghana. She said children are forced to dive to untangle nets in the deep cold lake. They get beaten when they come up for air. They are not allowed to go to school. Some suffer blood nose from diving too deep. She had just returned from Ghana without her luggage and apologized for her shoes which were a simple pair of leather sandals. The Chairman congratulated her on her commitment to the cause, noting that even though an actress, she was not afraid to appear at the UN in her simple clothes and without makeup, due to the luggage lost in transit. Two victims of forced trafficking gave personal testimonies of their tragic experiences, Dana a Romanian minor in Bologna, forced to prostitute, her 1st client was a policeman, who refused to help her. She was devastated and noted that as long as we have clients we will have problems. Julia Ormond noted need for skills training for parents and traffickers, Education for victims. Source, recipient or transit of trafficking. Criminals opportunistic, not developmental, Eradication of poverty.

 

Day 2. Tuesday 25^th April 2006

 

NGO organizing meeting at 9:30am.

Official agenda, 3^rd and 4^th meeting in the Board Room considering agenda items 4 and 5, “Thematic discussion on maximizing the effectiveness of technical assistance provided to Member States in crime prevention and criminal justice”.

Panel discussion on Responding to Violence against Women: The Role of the Criminal Justice System during lunch break, open to NGO members. Co-organised by the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) /DESA, Chaired by S. Noyan, Deputy Executive Director of UNODC. Panellists: Prof Y Ertuerk – special rapporteur on Violence against women, A. Khader, K. Gastinger – Minister of Justice, Austria, C. Brautigam – Chief women’s rights section – DAW DESAI.

Concurrently, another lunchtime function was “Presentation on Promoting judicial Integrity, in cooperation with the Judicial Integrity Group and with the participation of Dr. Nihal Jayawickrama, Coordinator of the Judicial Integrity Group.”

 

Day 3. Wednesday 26^th April 2006

 

The 5^th and 6^th meetings considered agenda items 5 and 6: Follow-up to the Eleventh United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and International cooperation in combating transnational crime, dealing with documents made available via internet and at the documentation counter.

The lunchtime activity in the Board Room was sponsored by the hosting country and city, Vienna. Representatives had made extensive preparation with PowerPoint presentations which were made available on CD. The actual presentations were very impressive, though quite rushed due to scheduling limitations. Oscar Bonilla, President of the National Council for Public Security, El Salvador spoke on Social crime prevention in El Salvador. Barry Weisberg of Violence Prevention Peace Promotion Strategy (VPPPS) and the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA spoke on Crime prevention in the large cities of the developing world. Shams Assadi, Department for Urban Development and Planning, City of Vienna, Austria addressed “Safe City” while Christine Panzer from the Municipal Office for Women’s Issues in Vienna spoke on “The issue of stalking: fighting violence against women”. Michael Dressel, from the Vienna Social Fund, introduced “Help U – for Security and a Living Together without Conflicts in the Urban Hotspot ‘Karlsplatz’ “ while Jolanta Biela from Poland spoke on “Safe small city”. Finally Valerie Sagant and Margaret Shaw from International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC), Montreal and Quebec in Canada quickly presented “Urban crime prevention: lessons learned and promising strategies from across the world.”

Other meetings included: EU Coordination; Informal consultations on draft resolution L.8 (Thailand); Screening of the Film “Victims of Crime: The Forgotten Ones” produced by International VIctimology Institute (Tillburg) and World Society of Victimology; and Panel discussion on Tools to assess and assist the Rule of Law and Criminal Justice Reform, in cooperation with DPKO, UNHCHR, the Irish Centre for Human Rights and the US Institute of Peace.

 

Day 4. Thursday 27^th April 2006

 

Lunch break on Thursday was Round table on Coordinating technical assistance in juvenile justice matters, presenting the activities of the inter-agency panel on juvenile justice, followed by a presentation on the “No Kids behind Bars!” campaign, by Defence for Children International as well as Demonstration on how to use the Counter-terrorism legislation database.

 

Day 5. Friday 28^th April 2006

 

9^th and 10^th official meeting considered agenda items 9, 10 and 11: Strategic management and programme questions; Provisional agenda for the sixteenth session of the Commission and Adoption of the report of the Commission on its fifteenth session. Draft reports and Draft resolutions were on the document list.

Other meetings were EU Coordination Meeting, NGO Coordination Meeting, Eastern European Group Meeting, Private Preview of the Film “All the Invisible Children”, Photo-presentation on prison conditions, by award-winning photo-journalist, Mr. Joao Silva, introduced by Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of UNODC and Presentation by the Australian Institute of Criminology on Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA).

Not on the official agenda was the informal lunchtime meeting in the restaurant of CSW NGO committee members with Christine Brautigam, CEDAW representative in New York. Organised by the CSW chairwoman, Rosy Weiss, the meeting was attended by Marlene Parenzen of Professional Business Women, University Women, Brunhilde Hoffman, Rosy Weiss, UNIFEM Linz, Maria Riehl, WFWPI, Thailand, Eleonore Hauer-Roner, International council of women, Lilly Gundacker, Irmgard Maentler, Angelika Hoffman from Servas.

Christine Brautigam was interested to hear the areas of concern of the various individuals and NGOs present and explained aspects of the work of CEDAW in New York, in particular the aspects relating to the Committee on the Status of Women. She suggested the CEDAW homepage for further information and some queries raised were not in her area of competence.

The lunchtime meeting went till 15h after which the committee of the whole had scheduled the final meeting for 16:30pm. After briefly meeting with the journalists and peace ambassadors in the press offices on the third floor and discovering that Peter and Dominique Haider had been there on behalf of IIFWP, the UN project concluded for the week apart from the voluntary reporting and reflection work.

 

 

4.      Impressions

Detailed impressions: It is necessary to recognise the combination of practical application of meeting procedure (external) and the diplomatic aspects of successfully chairing and participating in such international meetings (internal). The UN Chairman said the first point on the agenda was the appointing of 2 new vice presidents. Pakistan, the new ambassador for Pakistan’s name is Shabes which means eagle. The eagle flies very high. Asian group second vice chairman. African 2nd vice-chairman. Various regions have joined together into groups and make joint group statements. Austria represented the European Union. There is an African group and respective spokesperson, also Asian group.

Next followed the speech of the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa. Opening Remarks, Speech is available (see links). Just some personal notes:

“…by 2010 UNODC should have contributed to the containment of the sinister trilogy of drugs, crime and terrorism and helped strengthen the virtuous triad of peace, security and development…

“to do all this we need to structure ourselves better.”

Challenges we face as UNODC: Crime control; Peace keeping of UN used to be seen as keeping warring factions apart. Now after shooting ends, peace keeping is just as important; Terrorist prevention; Cooperation to prevent terrorism. Drugs and Crime and terrorist control regimes cannot stand alone. Poverty and exclusion make people vulnerable to crime. Today we have no comprehensive view of world crime. …Compiled through thick statistical fog. … UN Reform eg crime control regime … Drug report is very respected but not crime.

 

An issue of the UNODC is that the Crime Commission does not share the same reputation as the Drug Commission, which is apparently more advanced in policies, programmes and data collection.

 

Moldova spoke on behalf of GUAM which is Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova.

Crime prevention and criminal justice, transnational organised crime, Punishing trafficking in human organs.

 

 

Unbiased data collection is required,

Nigeria, Holland all are legal, prostitution and business; Sweden – client is illegal. Focus on solutions.

Best form of integration is family environment

Christine Brautigam SEDAW NY Status of women equality see web.

ECOSOC Gender Equality.

1. Causes consequences costs of violence against women statistics, practises.

 

 

5.         Tips

The NGO lounge on the third floor of the “C” Building of the United Nations in Vienna is a useful place to know about. There are computers and meeting rooms which are officially available to NGOs and can be booked in advance for meetings by registered NGOs. They are usually empty and could also be used for spontaneous meetings when not booked.

The computers have internet access, it is possible to access webmail, however the hardware is fairly outdated, the keyboards “slow” and USB connections not visible. There was no printer in sight during the Crime Commission meeting. Standard programmes (Microsoft Office) are installed.

 

NGOs who provide victim support receive governmental funding. The Austrian government has already applied this UN resolution and supports a number of NGOs who provide support for crime victims, now also having approved 15% for overhead costs as well as case by case funding for individual victim support.

 

The Austrian Government has recognised the importance of NGO cooperation and promotes support and cooperation with NGOs.

 

 

6.      Recommendations

1.             Clarify resources
a) determine or allocate staff capacities available
b) financing
c) cooperation with existing resources
d) physical location

 

2.             Educate:
a) train and educate UN co-workers
b) digest the history of local development and
c) inherit the foundation of predecessors, service and reporting
d) surf the (i) UN website, (ii) CONGO, (iii) ECOSOC

 

3.             Plan ahead, Network:
Keep informed, develop and share a calendar of events world wide to coordinate cooperation.

         E.g. 26-27 June International Conference in Egypt in cooperation with UNODC

 

4.             Use local resources wisely
a)      Organise UN representatives to attend local meetings and become familiar with local UN activities, get to know regional UN representatives;
b)      Mobilize resources to contribute to substance of meetings, i.e. present NGO statements related to themes of meetings, develop projects to address issues; coordinate local NGOs to make a joint statement to the general assembly where possible.

 

5.             Promote UN team communication. Coordinate through a central UN coordination

 

6.             Develop a strategy recognising what resources are available where for which meeting.

 

7.             Mobilize our unique capacities as global players by disseminating local UN “insider information” to prepare relevant proposals with relevant field reports.

 

8.             Develop projects relating to Millenium Development Goals (MDG) and UN pertinent issues.

 

9.             Recommended preparation: to prepare for UN work it is a good idea to get involved in voluntary organisations and attend organisational and board meetings. Learn how to run a public meeting and learn how to behave in a formal meeting setting. Learn how to make your point within a given time frame. This can then develop to the local government level. The national governments operate on the same principle, though what we often see on the television from our members of parliament is not often conducive to promoting respect for the persons or the systems represented. At the UN, the impression, at least from this Crime Commission meeting, was of absolute correctness, respect and cordiality. Always address the chairman and thank him and congratulate him for his re-election to the position.

 

10.         The case for education and promoting healthy families came through in various presentations during this Crime Commission Conference. I would highly recommend developing educational programmes and documenting viable projects of community and youth education to promote healthy families in the bid to prevent crime and build healthy integrated societies.

 

11.         One NGO statement which was presented and distributed entitled: Measures against organized crime to Item 6 of the provisional agenda* International cooperation in combating transnational crime. This item was submitted by the International Police Association, as an NGO. In my opinion the statement was badly prepared and the language not very professional. A clear statement is lacking, it appears to be more of an explanation or analysis of the as is situation. However, this indicates that NGO statements are possible, and with the advantage of Native English speakers in our team, we can do a professional job and make an impact, when our goals are clear.

  

7.      UN language and terminology

As I sit and listen I allow my mind to be saturated by the UN language and terminology.

 

Development partners,                                    

implementation,                                             

Anti corruption,                                              

implications for technical assistance,

Bangkok Declaration,                                     

Terrorism, organised crime,

Money laundering,                                          

recommend party to,

Rule of Law, Facilitate,                                   

UN convention on transnational organised crime,

Theft and transfer of cultural assets,                

State sovereignty rights,

Absence of consistent statistics and criminal reports,

Aggressive separatism,                                  

territorial integrity,

democratic reforms,                                       

impose a challenge to the international community, money laundering and corruption,        

Include ethical and cultural diversity,

Peace keeping operations,                              

Capacity building,

Early intervention                                           

Preventing urban crime,

Austria EU                                                    

stability of countries and regions,

Development of strategic partnerships              

NATP lack of police training