Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

International Drug Control

Statement by Mr. E. Balanandan, Member of Parliament on October 15, 1999 in the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) of the United Nations

Mr. Chairman,

We cannot but underscore the importance of the subject of drugs and crime prevention in their impact on societies. We would like to thank the Secretary General and Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention Mr. Pino Arlacchi for his statement.

From the Secretary-General’s report on crime prevention and criminal justice, we note that after the amalgamation of the Vienna based branches of the UN Secretariat dealing with international drug control and crime prevention by the establishment of the Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention, there has been greater synergy between the two entities incorporated under this office. We are particularly pleased that the 8th session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice held in Vienna in the second quarter of this year focussed itself on a broad range of issues covering crime prevention. The meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee on the question of Elaboration of a Convention on Trans-national Organised Crime has done significant work. It is a matter of satisfaction that the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its 8th session recommended for the consideration of this General Assembly, the adoption of three resolutions relevant to the work of the Ad hoc Committee. We are pleased that a Conference of Plenipotentiaries would be held in the year 2000 with the object of finalising the Convention for adoption at the Millennium Assembly.

The last General Assembly resolved that States review and evaluate their legislation and legal procedures and policies in criminal matters within their own legal environment to determine their gender impact. As we approach the fifth World Conference on Women in the year 2000, we cannot but highlight the importance of elimination of the criminal practice of gender-bias, whether by omission or commission. We place value on this matter.

Criminality and globalisation are inextricably linked. The fall of regulatory mechanisms in the face of liberalisation and globalisation coupled with the new communication technologies, have opened up new vistas for crime and criminality. Electronic banking and the fast spreading E-commerce will see rapidly emerging cartels of crime which will be difficult to counter unless mechanisms for tracking and bringing offenders to book are instituted. Globalised crime will require a completely new re-orientation in dealing with crime prevention, justice and treatment of offenders.

Mr. Chairman, last year’s 20th Special Session of the General Assembly was a landmark event in international efforts to achieve a drug-free world. The balance of approach at both the demand and supply side was seen as a major evolutionary process in the fight against drugs. The objective of reducing drastically the trafficking, abuse and production of drugs by 2008 through a set of measures, both preventive and punitive, was an encouraging event. We note with satisfaction from the Report of the Secretary General that the UNDCP has finalised the action plan for implementation of the Declaration on the guiding principles of reduction in drug demand. This was approved by the ECOSOC and is before this General Assembly for adoption. On the supply side, the commitment of the General Assembly to eliminate or significantly reduce the illicit cultivation of opium poppy, coca-bush and cannabis by the year 2008 was also significant. We note with satisfaction that UNDP is playing a catalytic role, at the request of the countries concerned, in providing a strategy for achieving this goal in close cooperation with various institutions. Concomitant with reduction in both demand and supply, the punitive aspect was highlighted in the Special Session through a search for judicial cooperation under the various international conventions and legal instruments.

Mr. Chairman, while we are extremely appreciative of all that has been done in the war against drugs, we would have been pleased to see the Secretary-General’s report reflecting the current international trends in certain parts of the world in India neighbourhood, where there has been a meteoric increase the in production of opium. In Afghanistan, the UNDCP, in its Annual Opium Poppy Survey for the year 1999, shows that this single country alone contributes 4581 metric tonnes of opium, 75% of the world production, meaning 458,100 kilos of heroin. 97% of this under the Taleban. The farmgate worth of the opium was estimated by UNDCP at a staggering $ 183 million. The end user worth would have been many multiples of that. Assuming from figures provided in other Committees on the spread of light arms, the cost of an illicit automatic is $ 30 apiece, the amount at the farmgate creates an arms holding of 6 million automatics! Even if a few thousand of these are turned to terror, what impact would that have! Export of drugs and use of resources earned through that to export fundamentalism is no religion of mankind. The victims of abuse of psychotropic substances and the victims of terror cry for their human rights that are abused by such deliberate and heinous purveyors of hell. We call upon nations to address the question of the human rights of such victims.

Mr. Chairman, there is no illicit production of drugs in India and the abuse of drugs is not a major problem. However, the realisation that the freedoms of our peoples would be enslaved if we relaxed societal vigil, made us a signatory to all the major conventions and decisions in the United Nations. We have taken a number of steps, primarily on a community-based platform, to reduce the demand for drugs which are generally localised at our borders. In our community based approach, we have found that faith groups, NGO’s and social clubs are prime movers. They are backed by de-toxification centres. For the purveyors of this trade we have strict legal measures. In our effort at seeing that our neighbours in the immediate and the world at large do not fall a victim, we have introduced laws that do not allow free entry of pre-cursors at our borders, controlled inland trade and movement of likely psychotropic chemicals and their products and instituted regulations to track down and punish money laundering. Our apex body, the Narcotics Control Bureau is active, including through the Interpol, with their international counterparts to curb this menace throughout the world.