7th Informal Meeting

Location: WebEx
13 Jul 2021, 15:00 - 16:30 (GMT+2)

7th Informal Meeting of the Alliance    
July 13th, 2021 15:00 – 16:15 (via Webex)

 

Participants: Anna Alvazzi del Frate (Chair), Phil Reichel, Cecilia ODywer, Gerson Nozea, Ingeborg Geyer (Treasurer), Ian Tennant, Jay Albanese, Mirjam Beike, Nuno Maria Roque Jorge, Yasushi Higashizawa, Renate Amesbauer, Linda Witong, Linda Pino, Karin Azadian, Evelyn Dürmayer, Jamie Bridge, Abdelkarim Darwish, Jeanne Searson, Linda MacDonald, Tobias Krachler (Secretary)

UNODC CST: Mirealla Dummar Frahi, Billy Batware

 

The meeting was chaired by Jay Albanese, Vice-Chair of the Alliance, on behalf of Anna Alvazzi del Frate, Chair of the Alliance.

Jay Albanese, Vice-Chair

During briefing on the HLPF, Victoria Espada explained the role of the UN Department of Economic and Social affairs is currently doing to incorporate civil society in achieving the SDGs. Her presentation can be found online and serves as an example of how civil society work should be incorporated in UN work. There was also a side event organized by the UNODC during the HLPF, showcasing how the 14th Crime Congress, the CND, and the CCPCJ operated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the thematic session of the 30th session of the CCPCJ could not be concluded in May, it will be further discussed during the reconvened session in December. The COSP to UNCAC will also take place in December in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Gary Hill

In-person meetings (for example on European Commission projects) are opening up again. The Program Network Institutes (PNI) offer a calendar of international events in its knowledge center http://crimeday.net/. Most of the UN meetings should be listed at this central place.

Inge Geyer, Treasurer

The Alliance will establish a task force of Board Members shortly to oversee the sponsoring of membership fees to organizations who cannot afford the Alliance’s yearly fees and apply for a waiver. Funding for this programme is coming through the Global Initiative’s Resilience Fund.

Ingeborg Geyer also informed about activities she recently followed. The core group of Chile, Ireland, Japan, Sierra Leone and Tunisia will be presenting a draft resolution on Civil Society Space during the 47th session of Human Rights Council. They invited CS to hear the core concerns and priorities that CS would like to be reflected in the resolution. She participated in all five meetings and was surprised about the strong concerns of the negative perception and narrative of CS. Nearly all participants stressed the shrinking space and reduced funds for NGOs within their working areas and called on the overall responsibility of governments to protect and support CS. Complains about shrinking space for participation in UN meetings were only addressed at the margins. The contributions, resilience of CS in supporting member states and their institutions during the pandemic should be used for strong language to change the narrative. That shrinking space results in worsening development outcomes as measured by SDG 16, with respect to violence, human rights violations, abuses of the rule of law, social and political exclusion, and the wider prospects for peaceful, stable and just institutions were only addressed indirectly by mentioning the policy paper:  Development Needs Civil Society-- The Implications of Civic Space for the Sustainable Development Goals

 https://actalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ACT_CivicSpace_Brief_2019_FinalVersion.pdf

Further to the briefing on HLPF (see https://www.crimealliance.org/what-we-do/hlpf2021), she also recommended the report by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation "Spotlight Reports: A Missing Link for Accountability at the High-Level Political Forum", discussing the so called spot light reports and the Voluntary national reports of HLPF. It is arguing that civil society's spotlight reports and meaningful participation of civil society have an important role to play in improving accountability of HLPF. Despite the review mechanisms of other Conventions and treaties these Civil Society reports are not documented with the VNRs reports and its documentation, the link to SDG 16.7 is missing, read more https://www.daghammarskjold.se/publication/spotlight-reports-missing-link-accountability-hlpf/

 

Ian Tennant, Vice-Chair

The SE4U stakeholder engagement training on the review mechanism for the UNTOC was taking place last week. The Alliance, the Global Initiative, and the UNODC CSU team are all heavily engaged in that project. Although being adopted a couple of years ago, the review mechanism has only really started now, while the avenues for civil society engagement are quite narrow, they do exist and are important to be engaged with. Last weeks training was conducted online and about 40 NGOs and individuals registered. As is the case with other review mechanisms, it is a long process but this allows civil society to plan and prepare. The Global Initiative has a dedicated space on their website for UNTOC related news and it is planning on launching a campaign for transparency in the review mechanism. Furthermore, the process to negotiate a new convention on cybercrime/misuse of the internet has been agreed upon by the GA. There will be 6 meetings in the Adhoc Committee in Vienna and New York starting in January, the modalities for civil society access are quite generous.

Mirella Dummar-Frahi, UNODC CSU

The Multi-stakeholder Hearing on Trafficking in Persons which is taking place today from 4pm CET (10am EDT). Unfortunately, the information reached the CSU only on a very short notice. There is also the multi-stakeholder hearing on the global PoA against trafficking, the information was distributed through various channels.

Billy Batware, UNODC CSU

A similar SE4U workshop is planned to take place around October. The CSU is already looking at the modalities for the constructive dialogues, these will start in May next year bringing together Governments and civil society organizations to share their experiences in the review process. The thematic session of the CND is coming up in September which will be focusing on issues related to crime as well.

Tobias Krachler, Secretary

Reminded the participants of the upcoming meetings such as the Briefing on BMS 7 on July 21st, the Alliance’s side event at BMS 7 on July 28th, and the next informal meeting on August 10th. Alliance meetings will, aside from special circumstances, generally be held at 3 PM Vienna time, as the most members are available. Furthermore, the new changes to the website were presented, such as UN Processes, a hub for all UN conferences, commissions, COPs, COSPs, etc. This offers the opportunity to centralize the information in one place and facilitate the search for relevant information.

Tour de table

Many participants shared information about their ongoing projects and work. Ranging from wildlife crime and the fight against climate change and its effects, to various forms of injustice and crime prevention related topics.

Follow-up

The next Informal Meeting will be on August 10th, from 15:00 to 16:30 CET.

Annex

Jeanne Sarson to all: This is a review of our book Women Unsilenced Our Refusal To Let Torturer-Traffickers Win that will be released this fall:  https://4w.pub/book-review-women-unsilenced-our-refusal-to-let-torturers-traffickers-win/?fbclid=IwAR36-M6sGuch0rcY90Il7yygUVl7UICxQEASE5OZNJ9Ywt2qs6klVYZoacI

Linda and I just finished this podcast interview with UK Kathleen Richardson on "Feminist Ethical  Dialogues" https://youtu.be/kbVTMGnHVQU

Our op-ed on Pornhub was recently published Here is the op-ed re Pornhub: PSA: Canada’s Ethics Committee hearings on Pornhub: Canada a destination country for online demand for rape, torture, and humiliation of women and girls https://nsadvocate.org/2021/06/29/psa-canadas-ethics-committee-hearings-on-pornhub-canada-a-destination-country-for-online-demand-for-rape-torture-and-humiliation-of-women-and-girls/

Jay Albanese to all: VIENNA

6–10 September UNODC: Conference of the States Parties to the UN Convention against Corruption: Implementation Review Group, resumed 12th session, Working Group on Asset Recovery, 15th session, and expert meeting to enhance international cooperation under UNCAC, 10th session

Vienna, VIC-M  Brigitte StrobelShaw

12–13 October UNODC: Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime: Working Group on Trafficking in Persons, 11th session

Vienna, VIC   C-BR D  Loide Aryee

14–15 October UNODC: Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime: Working Group on the Smuggling of Migrants, 8th session

Vienna, VIC   C-BR D  Loide Aryee

8-10 December UNODC: Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, reconvened 30th session: Thematic Discussion

Vienna, VIC   C-BR D  Jo Dedeyne Amann

9-10  December UNODC: Joint Meetings of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, reconvened 64th

James Bridge to all: Plus there is the "thematic intersessional" of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CBD) on 19-21 October 2021. Topics this year: that increasing links between drug trafficking, corruption and other forms of organized crime,

including trafficking in persons, trafficking in firearms, cybercrime and money-laundering and, in

some cases, terrorism, including money-laundering in connection with the financing of terrorism, are

observed;

that the value of confiscated proceeds of crime related to money -laundering arising from drug

trafficking at the global level remains low;

that the criminal misuse of information and communications technologies for illicit drug -related

activities is increasing;

justiceworks@yahoo.com

Gary Hill to all: The existing Crime Day Calendar  is at http://crimeday.net/

Billy Batware UNODC to all: The Multi-stakeholder Hearing can be followed live on UNWebTV at the following links:

CND thematic session in September: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CND/session/64_Session_2021/thematic-sessions.html

Mirjam Beike to all: And what you say, Jeanne, it has direct impact on young girls, because many boys learn, what they think "Sex" has to be from Pornhub. So, they are getting more and more violent...

amazing, Jeanne! We also try to get obstetric fistula in... we were thinking about obstetric fistula (not being treated or addressed in education and prevention)  a sort of

Ian Tennant to all: And our blog on the cybercrime process. https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/un-cybercrime-resolution/

Here is our overview for civil society in how to engage in the UNTOC review mechanism - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/untoc-review-civil-society/