G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

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G8 AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME

Global Finance Series Edited by John Kirton, Munk Centre for International Studies, Trinity College, Canada, Michele Fratianni, Indiana University, USA and Paolo Savona, LUISS University, Italy The intensifying globalisation of the twenty-first century has brought a myriad of new managerial and political challenges for governing international finance. The return of synchronous global slowdown, mounting developed country debt, and new economy volatility have overturned established economic certainties. Proliferating financial crises, transnational terrorism, currency consolidation, and increasing demands that international finance should better serve public goods such as social and environmental security have all arisen to compound the problem. The new public and private international institutions that are emerging to govern global finance have only just begun to comprehend and respond to this new world. Embracing international financial flows and foreign direct investment, in both the private and public sector dimensions, this series focuses on the challenges and opportunities faced by firms, national governments, and international institutions, and their roles in creating a new system of global finance. Also in the series Governing Global Derivatives Challenges and Risks Chiara Oldani ISBN 978-0-7546-7464-1 Financing Development The G8 and UN Contribution Michele Fratianni, John J. Kirton and Paolo Savona ISBN 978-0-7546-4676-1 The New Economic Diplomacy Decision-Making and Negotiation in International Economic Relations (Second Edition) Nicholas Bayne and Stephen Woolcock ISBN 978-0-7546-7047-6 (Hbk) ISBN 978-0-7546-7048-3 (Pbk)

Full listing at the back of the book

G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

AMANDINE SCHERRER

© Amandine Scherrer 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Amandine Scherrer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Wey Court East Union Road Farnham Surrey GU9 7PT England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Scherrer, Amandine G8 against transnational organized crime. - (Global finance series) 1. Group of Eight (Organization) 2. Transnational crime Prevention 3. Organized crime - Prevention I. Title 364.1'35 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scherrer, Amandine, 1979G8 against transnational organized crime / by Amandine Scherrer. p. cm. -- (Global finance) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7546-7544-0 1. Group of Eight (Organization) 2. Transnational crime. 3. Transnational crime --Prevention--International cooperation. 4. Law enforcement--International cooperation.  I. Title. HV6252.S34 2008 364.1'06--dc22

09ANSHT ISBN 978-0-7546-7544-0

2008047415

Contents

List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Introduction 1

When Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering Became Priorities on the G7’s Agenda

vii ix 1 7

2

From Drug Trafficking to Transnational Organized Crime

21

3

The G8’s Involvement in the International Mobilization against Transnational Organized Crime

35

The Creation of Expertise on Transnational Organized Crime within the G8 System

49

5

The Structure and Organization of the Lyon Group

61

6

Cooperation as the Imperative for Mobilizing against Transnational Organized Crime

75

7

The Socialization of G8 Norms within the G8 Member States

87

8

Dissemination of the Lyon Group’s Recommendations

101

9

From the Lyon Group to the Lyon/Roma Group

113

10

A Change of Priorities for the Lyon/Roma Group

129

4

Conclusion

143

Appendices 1 The Lyon Group’s Recommendations, 1996 2 G8 Recommendations on Transnational Crime, 2002

149 157

Bibliography Index

171 185

This page has been left blank intentionally

List of Figures and Tables

Figures 4.1

How the G8’s system for addressing transnational organized crime operates 8.1 References made to other international bodies by the Lyon Group (%) 9.1 Organization chart of the Lyon/Roma Group for 2003 9.2 Distribution of the French delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.3 Distribution of the German delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.4 Distribution of the Italian delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.5 Distribution of the British delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.6 Distribution of the Russian delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.7 Distribution of the Canadian delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.8 Distribution of the Japanese delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.9 Distribution of the US delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 9.10 Distribution of all delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group by center of interest—2005

51 104 117 123 123 124 124 125 125 126 126 127

Tables 5.1 5.2 5.3 7.1 9.1

Chronological list of known dates and places of Lyon Group meetings (1995–2005) List of Lyon Group subgroups (1995–2005) List of ad hoc groups set up by the Lyon Group (1995–2001) Summary of the 40 Lyon Group recommendations (1996) Delegations to the Lyon/Roma Group, November 2005

62 63 66 97 122

This page has been left blank intentionally

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my English translator, Marion Marshrons. Translation is always a difficult task that requires mutual understanding and, above all, respect for the words and intentions of the author. In that regard, working with Marion has been a most fruitful and successful experience. Research is, thankfully, not always a lonely enterprise. Throughout my journey of intellectual self-doubt and exploration, invaluable help in the form of comments and advice was given to me by many researchers and professors, most of whom have become friends. I am thus deeply indebted to Didier Bigo, Benoît Dupont, Gilles Favarel-Garrigues, John Kirton, Valsamis Mitsilegas, and James Sheptycki. I would also like to thank all the members of the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto. I would particularly like to mention Madeline Koch, Helen Walsh and Peter Hajnal, with whom I worked for over a year. They provided constant encouragement and friendship and it has been a great pleasure to work with them. I am also very grateful to the team working on the French journal Cultures & Conflits, as well as the researchers from the Parisbased Centre d’Etudes sur les Conflits, for their intellectual insights and their commitment to collective endeavour. The task of dissipating at least some of the mystery that surrounds the G8 experts on Transnational Organized Crime would certainly not have been possible if some of them had not agreed to meet me. I am thus much obliged to those who courageously chose to share some of their experience and knowledge with me. I have been fortunate to receive a great deal of emotional support while researching and writing this study from my friends. Thank you all for your help and encouragement. To Agnès, Christelle and Priscille Scherrer, Justin Rohmer and EmmanuelPierre Guittet, thank for your affection and love. To Victoire, Fleur and Andrea, and those who will follow, thank you for your smiles, your guileless affection and your abundant innocence.

This book is dedicated to my mother, Agnès Scherrer, in memory of my beloved and much missed father, Michel Scherrer (1949–1996)

Introduction

For the general public the most visible face of the G8 is undoubtedly that seen in the widespread media coverage that summits and counter-summits attract: the customary family photos of G8 representatives arranged in orderly rows and wearing suits standing in stark contrast to the bright rainbow colors of unruly demonstrators attending counter-summits. It might have seemed trivial and even disingenuous to contrast them in this way if it had not been for the Genoa Summit of 2001, which made a huge impact because of the extreme violence of both the demonstrations and the police response, culminating in the death of one demonstrator: a summit and counter-summit which further highlighted the remoteness of G8 meetings, a remoteness that is both political and geographical. Indeed, despite the efforts the G8 claims it has made to develop a more open relationship with civil society (Hajnal, 2002) and the involvement of other partners from the international community in its work, nothing seems to have staunched the criticisms of its lack of legitimacy and transparency. Since Genoa, all G8 Summits, except for the one held in St Petersburg (2006), have taken place under tight security in secluded sanctuaries outside of major cities and capitals: in Kananaskis in the Canadian Rockies in 2002, in Evian in the Alps in 2003, on an island off Sea Island in 2004 and in the depths of the Scottish countryside at Gleneagles in 2005. The Heilingendamm and Hokkaido Summits did not depart from the rule either: they were held well away from the demonstrations. The only people allowed to enter the heavily-protected inner sanctum were accredited journalists and a few carefully selected non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and campaigning groups. However, even those privileged summit witnesses were unable to be present at the Eight’s discussions, which were conducted in private over a period of two or three days in the most secret recesses of the G8 machinery. Yet there is an additional element that needs to be borne in mind in order to make a proper analysis of the G8, namely that the G8 as a whole is a far more complex structure than these annual meetings conducted under the media spotlight might suggest. Summits are in fact just the visible part of the iceberg: it is in fact beforehand that the rhetoric used in communiqués is meticulously prepared and economic, fiscal, monetary and, more recently, security policies are drawn up. While it is the personal representatives of the G8 Heads of State and Government, known as “sherpas,” who are largely responsible for drafting the end-of-summit communiqués, they are in turn advised and guided by the ministerial delegations and expert groups, thus entailing the involvement of the administrations of the G8 member countries at various levels. Since 1995, one of these expert groups has been the Lyon Group, which has specialized in combating transnational organized crime.

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G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

The purpose of this study is to paint a picture of that most secret of G8 debating arenas: the G8 Senior Experts’ Group on Transnational Organized Crime. “Transnational organized crime” was first mentioned in G7 discourses in the Naples Summit communiqué of 1994 but it was not until the following year at the Halifax Summit that the setting up of an experts’ group on the issue, charged with looking at existing arrangements for cooperation both bilateral and multilateral, identifying significant gaps and options for improved coordination and proposing practical action to fill such gaps, was announced. References to what in 1996 would become known as the “Lyon Group” (after the place where that year’s summit was held, namely Lyon, France) abound in subsequent Summit declarations, with its work being repeatedly “welcomed” and “encouraged.” From 1997 onwards, it was also clear from the declarations issued at meetings of the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers that the Lyon Group’s proposals were being acted on. However, the references made to the Lyon Group in official G8 documentation provide very little information to aid understanding of what it actually is: they simply state that it comprises “experts” on transnational organized crime who meet regularly and draw up a range of best practices and recommendations. However, such official declarations confine themselves to describing the latter, without giving any specific details about the individuals who make up the Lyon Group or their meetings, work, goals and strategies. So how should the exact role played by this expert group both within the G8 and on the international stage be understood? This is the question to which this study tries, by building a sociology of the G8 experts, to supply at least some answers. It seeks to explain the impact and influence the G8 and its experts have had on the international mobilization against transnational organized crime by studying the actors involved. The research presented here is the fruit of an exploratory approach based on hypothesis and deduction and thus suffers from certain limitations and imperfections. For those wishing to find out more about the Lyon Group, it is utterly opaque. Analyzing it is thus extremely complicated insofar as none of its meetings are made public, there are no official documents available showing the content of such meetings and there are no centralized records of the group. So piecing together its meeting schedule, finding out what was on the agenda of those meetings and gaining an overview of the group’s work is a seemingly impossible task. What is more, there are no secondary sources (newspaper articles or academic studies) on the subject either. The only references to the Lyon Group in existence are those that appear in the official communiqués and declarations mentioned above, none of which give specific details of its nature or role within the G8. Lastly, for those who wish to know who these so-called “experts” are, the task is made all the tougher because simply trying to identify them—find out how many there are, their names, where they come from and which institution they work for—is a long-term project. Nevertheless, official documents, internal documents obtained not without some difficulty



Introduction

3

and interviews with some of those involved in the Lyon Group have provided valuable information sources leading to the adoption of a particular research strategy which has made it possible to at least partially unveil the group. Given the extreme secrecy surrounding it, that unveiling is inevitably incomplete but nevertheless sufficient to form an important addition to what is known about its structures and actors and the way it operates. The initial research thus began with gathering together all the official G8 documents that were available. As there is no permanent G8 secretariat or central archive, one source was of immense help in gaining access to this type of documentation: the University of Toronto G8 Research Group which was set up in 1987. This group has in fact assumed the task of gathering together all official documents on the G8 and centralizing them in electronic format on a single website (www.g8.utoronto.ca). The latter has become a point of reference, even among G8 actors, for those who wish to find out more about this informal institution. The members of the G8 Research Group thus take it upon themselves to collect all the documents that are made available to journalists during summits and ministerial meetings, such as transcripts of communiqués and press conferences. The G8 Information Centre at the University of Toronto was an extremely productive source of information, making it possible to put together a complete set of G8 Summit statements from 1975 to 2005 as well as all the communiqués issued by the meetings of G8 Interior and Justice Ministers between 1997 and 2005. However, while these official statements confirmed the existence of the Lyon Group, there was no indication of the purpose of the group or the identity of the experts involved in it. Some initial answers were provided by the official government websites of the G8 member countries. For example, it emerged that the Lyon Group was made up of officials from the governments of the G8 member countries, especially from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice and the Interior, and that it worked closely with the delegations attending the meetings of G8 Justice and Interior Ministers. Overall, this official information, though extremely useful, was nevertheless insufficient to build up a sociology of the Lyon Group actors. Additional research into this group of experts, involving consultation of existing academic literature on the G8 in general as well as Internet sources and, in particular, interviews with some of the participants, has therefore helped to fill in some of the gaps left by the official documentation. It was thus possible to gather together a number of confidential, unpublished internal working documents belonging to the Lyon Group covering the period 1995–2005, most of which were obtained during the interviews. This body of primary sources (consisting of some 100 documents, of which 30 or so were official and 60 or so internal and unofficial) clearly does not represent the total output of the Lyon Group and it is impossible to put an exact figure on the number of documents generated. By trying to catalogue the documents available and thoroughly analyzing them, it has nevertheless been possible to achieve a better understanding of the work

4

G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

of the Lyon Group. In order to preserve the confidentiality of the conditions in which the internal and unofficial documents were obtained, only the title and year of each one is given. As for the official documents, they can be consulted on line. Since the catalogued documentation was far more abundant for the period 1996–2000 than for 2000–2005, the interviews conducted between 2002 and 2007 allowed some of the information gaps to be filled in. Establishing contact with the Lyon Group actors was not an easy task since none of the abovementioned documents revealed their identity. An initial interview carried out in 2002 with a French Foreign Ministry official who had worked on issues related to organized crime and corruption marked the beginning of a long quest. The names provided in that first interview made it possible to contact some of the individuals who had participated in the Lyon Group and, as a result, a first series of interviews was thus conducted at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Paris between December 2002 and August 2003. Since France held the G8 presidency during 2003, the interviews were extremely illuminating and a substantial amount of information about the work done by the Lyon Group during that period emerged. In 2006, further interviews were carried out in Paris with officials from the Justice and Interior Ministries. Given the international nature of the Lyon Group, another series of interviews was conducted in Ottawa (Canada) in April 2005 and in London (Great Britain) in March 2006. Lastly, in February 2006 interviews were carried out in Brussels (Belgium) with actors from the European Commission who had attended Lyon Group meetings as observers. In fact, since the 1970s, officials from the European Commission have been invited to participate at all levels of preparation of G8 Summits in which the Lyon Group has been involved. Twenty interviews with actors from the Lyon Group were conducted. Since the vast majority of those interviewed wished to remain anonymous, neither their names nor their positions are given. Given that the information gathered nevertheless remained fragmentary, the research strategy adopted focused mainly on continually checking and cross-checking it against the body of primary sources (official and unofficial documents and interviews). By doing so, it was possible to reconstruct certain sequences of events, determine agendas, categorize the actions taken and confirm data that was sometimes elliptical. This approach provided an overview, albeit incomplete but sufficiently fleshed out for some conclusions to be drawn. However, some gaps remain, mainly owing to the excessive secrecy surrounding the Lyon Group’s activities. Given the veil of confidentiality enshrouding it, this study, rather than offering a thorough analysis of the Lyon Group, seeks to tear back that veil. When confronted with the group’s opacity, confidentiality and reticent nature, even lifting just a corner of the veil is a major challenge for anyone wishing to undertake a sociology of that secretive body and its procedures. This therefore brings sharply to the fore the question of the democratic control of bureaucracies that have become transnational. In the case of the



Introduction

5

G8, this problematic is all the more striking in that what is discussed and agreed there has international consequences. The main aim of this book is therefore to shed light on the way in which the confidential expertise within the Lyon Group operates. The challenges already highlighted justify the chronological approach taken. That approach performed a dual function in that it has made it possible to demonstrate both how the Lyon Group’s power has gradually grown since it was set up in 1995 and how the group has evolved up to the present time. It also shows how its recommendations have become increasingly radical and that there is an ever greater tendency towards confidentiality. Taking such an historical approach also helps to increase the hitherto poor level of public awareness of the role the G8 has been playing in the fight against transnational organized crime. It has become almost commonplace these days for the official discourses of major international and/or regional organizations to contain references to the need to combat transnational organized crime and for this to be posited as being of strategic global importance. The voice of the G7/8 was added to this chorus from the late-1980s onwards and particularly during the 1990s. The first three chapters therefore set out to put the international mobilization against transnational organized crime that was fostered during the 1990s, particularly by the G7/8, back into context in order to enhance understanding of the process whereby the creation and work of a G8 expert group on transnational organized crime have become legitimized. In Chapter 4, the setting in place of this so-called “G8” expertise is thoroughly examined by making a sociological analysis of the actors involved: the participants in the Lyon Group. The aim is to problematize the consequences of resorting to the use of special expertise on transnational organized crime within a specifically G8 framework. For example, did it happen because there was a need for information and technical skills on a particular subject or was it a strategy for acquiring political legitimacy? By looking at the sociology of the actors involved, it is possible to obtain at least some answers to the following questions: Who are these “G8” experts? What training and skills do they have? What sources and resources have they mobilized or do they have at their disposal? Within what framework are they interacting? By showing the similarities and homologous aspects of the Lyon Group actors, this attempt at objectivization seeks to reveal their physiognomy so that the reasons and possibilities for joint mobilization can be understood. It is also an opportunity to raise questions about their status as experts within the “G8” edifice and to examine their role in developing “G8” norms for combating transnational organized crime. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with the nature of so-called “G8” work on transnational organized crime. The expertise provided by the Lyon Group and the instruments of cooperation that ensue from it are examined from the perspective of the beliefs and identities of the actors involved in their

6

G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

production. While those individuals may share many similarities, the fruits of their joint work (mainly best practice guidelines and recommendations) sometimes reflect differing approaches which are nevertheless tempered by couching proposals in broad terms that have been agreed by consensus. This nuanced picture should not, however, dilute the dual role that the Lyon Group plays: on the one hand, it facilitates coordination of the G8 member countries by fostering judicial harmonization and the homogenization of law enforcement practices  and, on the other, it purports to complement other international fora, indeed claiming to add value to them, thereby playing a still very discreet role in other arenas such as the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU). These two activities—coordination of the G8 member countries and dissemination of the Lyon Group’s work on the international stage—are covered in Chapters 7 and 8, the aim of which is to advance certain hypotheses concerning the socialization and dissemination of the Lyon Group’s recommendations for combating transnational organized crime and to try to show the privileged position the G8 has acquired as a purveyor of international norms. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the focus of the Lyon Group’s work, which until then had been on transnational organized crime, has shifted to increasingly include terrorism, a change of direction which is addressed in Chapter 9. In the wake of September 11, the actors from the Lyon Group began to work more and more closely with the actors from the Roma Group, a G8 expert group which until 2001 had been the G8 counterpart of the Lyon Group responsible for addressing counter-terrorism. As a result of this coming together, the methods and means used to combat transnational organized crime and terrorism were pooled, leading to the adoption of an ever more proactive and preventive approach. Chapter 10 thus examines how the distribution of expertise within a Lyon Group that found itself restructured in the context of post-September 11 has changed, as well as the type of role the G8 has sought to play on the international stage since 2001 with regard to combating transnational organized crime and, a fortiori, terrorism.

Chapter 1

When Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering Became Priorities on the G7’s Agenda

This chapter sets out to examine how issues related to international crime, initially drug trafficking and the money laundering associated with it, came to feature on the agenda of the G7/8.1 While significant international mobilization against these types of crimes took place from the end of the 1980s onwards, a number of questions arise with regard to the G7/8’s role within it, the main one being: why did the G7/8, a body often seen as devoted to macroeconomic matters, take up these issues? To find some answers and understand how its agenda has been expanded to include so-called “global security” matters, we need to look back at the history of the G7/8 from 1975 to date. G7 Summits—Should They be Termed Economic? In the literature on the G7/8, very few scholars have provided a well-documented account of its history, an exception being Nicholas Bayne (Bayne and Putnam 1987; Bayne 2000; Bayne 2004). The very factual approach he adopts is of clear interest and will be taken up in part in the following description of the main stages of the G7/8’s history since its creation in 1975. Held in reaction to the 1973 oil crisis, the first meeting of the Seven in 1975 was presented as being “a searching and productive exchange of views on the world economic situation, on economic problems common to our countries, on their human, social and political implications, and on plans for resolving them” (Rambouillet Declaration, November 15–17, 1975). The same Declaration described the purpose of the meeting in the following terms: “We intend to intensify our cooperation on all these problems in the framework of existing institutions as well as in all the relevant international organizations,” the problems in question being unemployment, inflation and matters relating to energy dependence. It was therefore an international 1  The use of the term “G7/8” in this work includes Russia which attended Summits from the early 1990s onwards but did not attain official membership until 1998. G7 denotes the period when Russia was excluded and G8 the period when it had become a full member.

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G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

consultation on the economic problems of the time in which there was recognition of a common basis for the choice of members of the group: We came together because of shared beliefs and shared responsibilities. We are each responsible for the government of an open, democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement. Our success will strengthen, indeed is essential to, democratic societies everywhere. We are each responsible for assuring the prosperity of a major industrial economy. The growth and stability of our economies will help the entire industrial world and developing countries to prosper.

Given the G7’s original calling (consultation with regard to common economic problems), the continual expansion of its agenda since 1975 is confusing for the observer. There is in fact a myth here which needs to be dispelled: the group was definitely not a body that discussed only economic issues. As recounted by Nicholas Bayne, the first G7 agreement of a non-economic nature was reached in 1978 in Bonn, on the initiative of Helmut Schmidt, and concerned the issue of hostage-taking, this against a background in which numerous incidents of hostage-taking and aircraft hijacking, particularly by the Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany, had taken place during the 1970s. The systematic (and official) inclusion of international political issues on summit agendas really began in 1979. In 1986, the Williamsburgh Summit issued a joint declaration on security for the first time. The end of bipolarity at the end of the 1980s had hastened the G7’s increasing focus on politics and security. The decision to invite Gorbachev to the London Summit in 1991 marked the point of no return as far as the changing nature of summits was concerned: if the idea was to stick to macroeconomic matters, then it made no sense to invite Russia to attend. The G7 (which officially became the G8 in 1998) thus began to put out an increasing number of specific declarations, first of all on terrorism and later on East/West relations and security (disarmament, arms control, proliferation and crisis management), and to take on the concerns raised (or deemed to be raised) by globalization. At the time of the very first summits, such political questions were only discussed on the sidelines and, what is more, did not involve all partners. At the London Summit in 1977 and the Bonn Summit in 1978, the Heads of State and Government of France, United Kingdom (UK), Germany and the United States met separately in order to discuss geopolitical issues of the time. The deterioration of the political climate between East and West following the Soviet Union’s deployment of SS20 missiles was giving increasing cause for concern (Bayne and Putnam 1987, 103). The idea of holding a G4 meeting (involving France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States) outside of the G7 was proposed by Chancellor Schmidt and the invitation sent out by the French President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. The group thus met on



When Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering Became Priorities

9

January 5 and 6, 1979 in Guadeloupe. This “mini Summit” sought to resolve the sensitive issue of missiles in Europe. The four leaders present reached agreement on a “two-stage approach,” linking the stationing of US Pershing II missiles to progress in negotiations with the USSR on medium-range weapons. Other matters discussed included the economic rescue of Turkey and the problems posed by China, Iran and the Gulf region (Carter 1982, 234–6; Brzezinski 1983, 420). The meeting, which did not issue a communiqué, provoked a hostile reaction from the G7 partners who had been excluded from these discussions, leading them to push for summit agendas to be expanded to include political issues (Bayne and Putnam 1987, 104). At the 1979 Summit in Tokyo, the issue of refugees from Indo-China was addressed, indicating that from then on summits would also provide an opportunity to react to sudden crises or political events that were too important not to be mentioned. In Venice in 1980, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was discussed. In Ottawa in 1981, the Canadian Presidency took the initiative to further formalize this embracing of non-macroeconomic issues by drawing up a separate declaration on political issues. This broadening of the G7 agenda elicited a fairly favorable reaction from the media but was less popular with some of the Group’s leaders such as François Mitterrand, who did not want the Versailles Summit of 1982, which he was hosting, to adopt a separate political declaration. As a result, only a brief mention of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon was slipped into the general declaration. For a while political and economic issues were not treated in the same way. To a certain extent, between 1979 and 1986, there were two parallel summits: one economic and one political, the former coordinated by sherpas (the Heads of State and Government’s personal representatives) and the latter by Foreign Ministries. From 1987, responsibility for economic discussions was further delegated to the Finance Ministers of the G7 while the Heads of State and Government spent more of their time at summits discussing nonmacroeconomic issues. One of the reasons given for this change of direction was that the Heads of State and Government attending summits lacked the necessary economic expertise. It is true that the first few summits had been dominated by former Finance Ministers but by 1983 none of the founding fathers of the G7 remained in post and none of the new arrivals had served as Finance Minister. Jimmy Carter, and even more so his successor, Ronald Reagan, also pushed for economic issues to be further delegated to Finance Ministers. This was partly due to their lack of expertise in macroeconomic matters (Bayne 2005, 5). Moreover the G7 Finance Ministers later went on to develop their very own structure: in addition to their meetings prior to the summits of Heads of State and Government, they began to meet together several times a year, particularly alongside IMF meetings. Lastly, the decision to invite Mikhail Gorbachev to the London Summit signified the transformation of summits which from then on addressed global issues (Penttila 2003, 42). In 1991, at the London summit, the G7 began to

10

G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

provide Russia with financial assistance in order to prevent chaos. Despite the errors made by the Russians in managing their economy (inflation of debt), it encouraged the IMF and the World Bank to grant the country new loans (Bayne 2000, 163). At the 1992 Munich Summit, the G7 promised to relieve Russia’s debt burden if it accepted and complied with the agreements it had concluded with the IMF and the World Bank. In addition to economic aid in the form of loans, intensive technical assistance was also promised. The aid provided by the G7 encouraged the Russians to repeatedly call for full membership. There were numerous splits within the group in this regard. France and Germany wanted requests for membership from their European partners to be considered while the United States and Japan were firmly opposed to Russia becoming a full member. In the end, the Seven opted for allowing Russia to gradually increase its participation at each successive summit (Kirton 1997, 265). However, it was generally accepted by the seven founder members that Russia would be excluded from economic debates. Russia’s growing involvement thus led to the formation of a P8 (Political 8) to deal not only with conventional security and political issues but also with a whole range of global or “new security” problems, such as transnational crime, drugs, terrorism and environmental protection. It can thus be shown that from 1975 onwards, contrary to what is widely believed, issues other than those related to macroeconomics were never excluded from G7 discussions. However, the explanations put forward by certain scholars with regard to how “global issues,” such as drugs trafficking and money laundering, came to be included on the G7’s agenda, are somewhat flawed. The argument they most often use to explain the expansion of the G7’s agenda is, in fact, to say that it was adapting to the post-Cold War era which, with the removal of the East/West divide, saw the emergence of globalization, a globalization which brought to light global problems. The inclusion of such problems was thus put down to the fact that the G7 had decided to turn itself into a global security body (Kirton 1997, 268). There is, however, an alternative explanation that has more to do with the identity crisis the G7 went through during the 1990s. A Crisis of Identity for the G7 in the Post-Cold War Era In the early 1990s, the G7 in fact underwent several crises which shook it to its foundations and called its raison d’être into question. These included its inadequacies in the realm of macroeconomic management, the question of its place on the international stage in the era of globalization, and its lack of legitimacy which was incurring increasing criticism. As far as macroeconomics—the Group’s original mission—was concerned, some observers have pointed out that, although at their outset G7 Summits constituted the most well-known, if not the most important, component of



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international economic coordination mechanisms, the Group soon failed in that area. During the 1990s, as the need and desire for economic coordination (which was from then on the responsibility of the G7 Finance Ministers) declined, the G7 Summits lost their authority. As examples of this, the same observers cite the G7’s failure to conclude the Uruguay Round negotiations in 1990 as well as persistent splits over how much aid to give to the post-Soviet countries in 1991 and over Yugoslavia in 1992 (Ikenberry 1993). Given its apparent inability to reinvent itself following the upheaval caused by the fall of the USSR, the G7 was increasingly seen as “a forum without a purpose” (Smyser 1993, 23). This “crisis” was said to stem from the difficulty the G7 had in adapting to the post-Cold War world. In the 1980s, scholars such as Putnam and Bayne pointed out that the G7 was under US leadership and its success therefore depended mainly on the good will and involvement of the US leaders of the time (Bayne and Putnam, 273). Even though US hegemony declined during the 1990s, other scholars such as Bergsten and Henning talk about a false new consensus within the group which went on to pose a challenge to its cohesion, a situation which was exacerbated by the growing globalization which would from then on render governments incapable of controlling the market (Bergsten and Henning 1996). Even though they admit that, through the meetings of its ministers and the governors of central banks, the G7 managed to act as a fire brigade, particularly when responding to international monetary crises, Bergsten and Henning claim that the G7 never managed to establish systemic arrangements that were capable of preventing global economic problems. Its effectiveness therefore severely declined during the 1990s, partly because of traditional differences between members on key issues, giving rise to a “consensus for inaction” (Bergsten and Henning 1996, 5). The G7’s place in the international financial system in the post-Cold War era was also called into question insofar as the existence of different regional groupings, the introduction of the euro and the expansion of the World Trade Organization (WTO) were all new developments that rendered the usefulness of having a coordinating body made up of those seven countries in particular obsolete (Hodges 1999). The strongest and most frequent criticisms made of the G7 concerned not only its inequity but also its lack of legitimacy as a macroeconomic coordinator. Its summits in fact increasingly came to resemble meetings of a “world board of management,” a club de riches to which very few countries had access but which laid down rules for those outside of it. Over and above its alleged crises and inconsistencies, criticism was directed also at its ideology. Many scholars stressed the excluding nature of the G7, noting that it tended to operate largely in secret, reaching consensus on the direction institutions should take and thereby promoting its own system of beliefs that it sought to extend to the rest of the world. These criticisms were mainly based on its economic ideology.

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Based on his examination of the financial issues addressed by the G7, Andrew Baker explains, for example, that the G7 acted as a powerful pressure group that was able to exert enormous influence within multilateral institutions (Baker 2000, 179). “Ginger group,” the term he uses to describe the G7, can be understood as meaning both a catalyzing group and a pressure group. In this respect he points out that the G7 sought mainly to promote, strengthen and extend the international financial system so that it reflected these fundamental open market principles and sound monetary policies. Thus, in his view, the G7 sought to protect and promote its own belief system, thereby ensuring that the international economic system reflected it as much as possible. It is this desire to universalize the G7 discourse which has been widely criticized by scholars such as Alison Bailin and Stephen Gill. The “group hegemony model” upheld by Alison Bailin stresses the concentration of powers within the G7 and the group identity linked to an economic liberalism that was supported by a preparatory process and an effective system of interaction (Bailin 2005). The G7, in representing the particular interests of its members, was thus said to have widened the gap between North and South both pragmatically and ideologically. The main argument put forward in this model is that the G7 became the new hegemon, using its economic power to construct a neoliberal order, complete with decision-making procedures and rules that favored it. The hegemon incorporated certain countries into this system by providing them with import markets, investment and other incentives, thus allowing it to hold on to its privileged position by supplying enough capital or other forms of dependence such as technology so that rich and poor could be incorporated into the same system without changing the method of distribution. The hegemonic group thereby maintained the world order and preserved an institutional stability that contributed to the inequity of the system, acting in a way that benefited the rich and kept the poor countries of the South in the “lower class.” As a global stabilizer, it perpetuated an unequal system. Similarly, the critique of the “neo-liberal hegemonic consensus model” upheld by Stephen Gill (Gill 1999) sees that model as giving precedence to the causal importance of the ideas shared by the G7 finance ministers and leaders and which determined how the club acted as a body. Gill claims that these leaders and their allies deliberately created far-reaching values that bolstered their own position and destroyed the values shared by others. Though in this sense effective, the G7 found itself being increasingly challenged by the processes of globalization and liberalization that had resulted in a global concentration of wealth and power, as well as by the predominance of a neoliberal vision. The G7 was thus described as a “nexus;” in other words, it symbolized the constellation of social and political forces that regulated, policed and protected neoliberal discipline in the world order. All of these critics emphasize the G7’s incoherence, the ambiguities of this partially secret and confidential body and, above all, its inability to redefine its role and nature in the post-Cold War era. It therefore faced a



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crisis of legitimacy on two fronts: one in relation to its effectiveness and the other in relation to its representativeness. It is worth pointing out here that this atypical institution that was the G7 was being almost constantly called into question. While the 1975 meeting had been widely welcomed by both the participants and the media, the routinization of such meetings did not systematically receive the same response. However, none of the Heads of State and Government, who have obviously changed over time between 1975 and the present day, ever suggested that such summits should no longer be held. For example, despite being very sceptical about them, François Mitterrand never turned down an invitation to attend or refused to greet his partners, which he did with great pomp at Versailles in 1982 and Paris in 1989. Bill Clinton, who sometimes appeared similarly sceptical, said in 1993 that summits were crucial for allowing views to be exchanged and reaching consensus on the major challenges facing the world. Nicholas Bayne and Robert Putnam also talk about the “magnetic power” of summits (Bayne and Putnam 1987, 183) and it is true that, despite disagreements with regard to both their form and content, the holding of such meetings was never really questioned. Is it in fact here in this tension (between the proliferation of justified criticism of the G7 and its desire to preserve the existence of a closed and prestigious club) that we find the most heuristically useful element for understanding why it came to take on “global issues?” Should this move on the part of the G7 at the end of the 1980s therefore be understood both as an adaptation made in the face of a largely macroeconomic agenda that, against a background of interdependency and globalization, was no longer justified and as a strategy for legitimizing itself in the eyes of the world by showing that it knew what to do and how to react in the face of the public fears engendered by such globalization? Drugs and Money Laundering: Mobilizing Issues While a year earlier, in 1988, the United Nations had drawn up the International Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, it was in 1989, at the Paris Summit, that the Seven first addressed the question of international crime by discussing issues related to drugs trafficking and money laundering. In its final declaration, the G7 said, “[T]he drug problem has reached devastating proportions. We stress the urgent need for decisive action, both on a national and an international basis” (Paris Summit Communiqué, 1989). The link between drugs trafficking and money laundering was explicit in the communiqué: “We urge all countries, especially those where drug production, trading and consumption are large, to join our efforts to counter drug production, to reduce demand, and to carry forward the fight against drug trafficking itself and the laundering of its proceeds.”

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By taking up the issue of drugs and money laundering the year after the United Nations did, the G7 sought to explicitly take advantage of the added value the topic had acquired on the international stage. In the same declaration, the G7 countries said they wanted to strengthen the role of the United Nations in the war against drugs through an increase in its resources and through reinforced effectiveness of its operation […]; strengthen the efficiency of the cooperative and mutual assistance on these issues, the first steps being a prompt adhesion to, ratification and implementation of the Vienna Convention on illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

The establishment of an international group devoted to the issue of money laundering reinforced this argument. It was in fact at this same Paris Summit that the G7 set up the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), whose mission was to draft 40 recommendations to serve as a universal framework in the fight against money laundering. One of the participants at the Paris Summit, the then director of the French Office Centrale pour la Répression du Trafic Illicite de Stupéfiants (Central Office for Suppression of Drug Trafficking), declared that “even though the internationalization of the fight against money laundering had undeniably come about in response to US wishes, the French Government felt justified in stepping up the fight against drugs trafficking” (quoted in Favarel-Garrigues 2003b, 147). The French Presidency of the G7 thus welcomed a US proposal to set up a “group of experts,” the official mandate of which was to assess the results of cooperation already undertaken in order to prevent the utilization of the banking system and financial institutions for the purpose of money laundering, and to consider additional preventive efforts in this field, including the adaptation of the legal and regulatory systems so as to enhance multilateral judicial assistance. (Paris Summit Communiqué, 1989.)

The declaration issued at the Houston Summit the following year allowed the Seven to reaffirm their support for the United Nations Convention and to endorse the FATF report. The Seven also decided that As agreed at the May meeting of Task Force Finance Ministers, the FATF should be reconvened for a second year, chaired by France, to assess and facilitate the implementation of these recommendations, and to complement them where appropriate. All OECD and financial center countries that subscribe to the recommendations of the Task Force should be invited to participate in this exercise. The report of the new FATF would be completed before we next meet. We also invite all other countries to participate in the



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fight against money laundering and to implement the recommendations of the FATF. (Houston Summit Communiqué, 1990)

In 1992, the FATF became a permanent institution based at the offices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and went on to become widely recognized as the international authority on fighting money laundering (Sheptycki 2000b; Reuter and Truman 2004). The inclusion of these two related issues—drug trafficking and the laundering of its proceeds—on the Seven’s agenda cannot be dissociated from the US context of the time. As already mentioned, this initiative stemmed mainly from Ronald Reagan’s desire to internationalize, especially at the level of international institutions, the “war on drugs” that had been started in the United States in the 1970s (Nadelmann 1993). In order to better understand the inclusion of the two issues in G7 discourses and actions, the political issues at stake in this “war on drugs” need to be clarified. It is in fact essential to look at the sociological, political and historical dynamics that led to these problems becoming items on the Seven’s agenda at the end of the 1980s. Even though the “demonization” of so-called “dangerous” drugs predates the 1980s (Chouvy and Laniel 2004), it was nevertheless in this period that the “war on drugs’ rhetoric was constructed in the United States, a war which, as a result of its influence and ricochet effect, became international. In this connection, it is worth stopping a moment to examine the formation of this discourse which is now standard on the international stage, a discourse that is presented as evidence when it is in fact the consequence of the activism of a series of actors who took it upon themselves to combat this form of trafficking. It should indeed be recognized that the placing of some of these substances on the list of banned drugs was the result of pressure from a range of interests, be they health professionals or various entrepreneurs claiming to be the guardians of a particular ethical or moral code. The establishment of an international public policy on drugs, as well as their legal regulation, date back to the end of the nineteenth century and, as François-Xavier Dudouet recalls, were the “fruit of two relatively independent processes: the mobilization of the anti-opium movements and the professionalization of doctors and pharmacists” (Dudouet 2003, 93). Thus, as stated in numerous writings on the subject, it was not so much the dangerous nature of certain substances, as determined by doctors or scientists, which caused their suppression but rather the desire to regulate their methods of distribution in response to specific professional interests (Nadelmann 1990; Chouvy and Laniel 2004). From the work of Virginia Berridge, it can indeed be seen that the condemnation by health professionals of the non-medical use of these substances (which, at the time, were opium, morphine and cocaine) was part of a process of professionalization, the aim of which was to ensure that the monopoly for the retail distribution of drugs remained with doctors working in medicine and pharmacies (Berridge 1978). This condemnation

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was reinforced by the emergence of individuals who, in the sense coined by Howard Becker (1963), can be called “moral entrepreneurs” and, from the end of the nineteenth century, devoted themselves to condemning the “devastating effects” of opium consumption. American Protestant missionaries returning from the Far East also played a major role in this process of condemnation by dissociating the medical use of drugs from their “recreational” use in their discourse, thereby legitimizing the former and stigmatizing the latter (Chouvy and Laniel 2004). It was the conjunction of this two-pronged movement (the professionalization of doctors and pharmacists and the crusades launched by moral entrepreneurs) and the reciprocal reinforcement of a discourse that separated out the legitimate and illegitimate use of drugs on behalf of various interests (those who wanted a distribution monopoly/those who wanted to restrict bodily pleasure in the name of morals) that resulted in the establishment of international definitions of not only what constituted licit and illicit drugs but also who was or was not authorized to regulate the drug market. This international control of drugs came about gradually. The starting point was the 1912 Hague Convention initiated by US entrepreneurs. It set out what would become the global model for the banning of drugs, namely recognition as a universal norm of the monopoly enjoyed by doctors and pharmacists with regard to their retail distribution. The international conventions of 1925 and 1931 marked a further step in the control of the supply and manufacture of drugs. This control system “created a licit supply chain that was so hermetic that it forced [those interested] in any type of non-medical consumption to turn to illicit sources of supply. It was only therefore after [the introduction of] the 1925 and 1931 conventions that the illicit manufacture and trafficking of drugs began” (Dudouet 2003, 100). “Illicit” drugs were thus defined first and foremost in opposition to so-called “licit” drugs, namely those that had a medical use. If we can talk about an “international public policy” on drugs, it is because, on this specific issue, it was at international level that the rules regulating the control of drugs were first devised, thus allowing domestic legislation on the subject to gradually be standardized, in particular by means of international conventions: the pre-war ones of 1921, 1925 and 1931, followed by the UN drugs convention of 1961 and the Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances in 1988. In terms of institutions, this approach at international level led to the setting up of several specific bodies: the monitoring of the Hague Convention of 1921, as well as the 1925 and 1931 Conventions, was carried out by the League of Nations. The latter also established a Permanent Central Opium Board which, in 1945, was turned into a drugs board under UN control. The United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), first set up in 1990, was replaced in 2002 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).



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A key point needs stressing here: the internationalization of drug control initially centered on the regulation of licit activities and it was only in the early 1970s that it began to take a strictly security-based approach. There was a gradual transition from an approach based on the regulation of drugs (through defining their licit/illicit use) to one that was increasingly geared towards cracking down on the actors designated as illegitimate, namely those who manufactured/transported/sold these substances outside of the legal framework laid down in these international conventions. This security-based approach was largely inspired by US anti-drug policies. In fact, in 1914, following the establishment of the 1912 Hague Convention, the US passed the Harrison Act which dealt with the regulation and taxation of the production, importation, distribution and use of opiates. Nevertheless, as Becker points out with regard to marijuana, neither the population nor law enforcement officials seem to have viewed its use as a serious problem (Becker 1963). It was only in 1930, with the establishment of the Bureau of Narcotics within the Treasury Department, that a (judicial and media) offensive was launched, by Bureau officials, in order to reinforce the Act and ensure its implementation. It was not hard for the offensive to be successful since it largely reiterated a range of different moralizing discourses. Through the media (by publishing articles in the popular press on the damaging effects of marijuana, focusing especially on the crimes committed by some of its users), it managed to unite a whole swathe of public opinion. The success of this offensive was also attributable to one man in particular, a typical Becker-type moral entrepreneur: Harry Anslinger. Anslinger had distinguished himself by his zeal when he was in charge of the Foreign Control Section of the Prohibition Unit in the 1920s. In 1930 he was promoted to become Director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). As Nadelmann points out, within US borders, Anslinger focused his energies on campaigning to strengthen and increase the sentences imposed on drugs traffickers while abroad, he became a key figure at international conferences, thereby increasing his contacts in agencies similar to the FBN, especially in Canada, UK, France, Germany and Switzerland (Nadelmann 1993, 95). Nadelmann stresses Anslinger’s importance as an extremely skilled lobbyist, especially his talent for popularizing tales of drug-induced crime, in opposing most efforts to treat drug addiction primarily as a medical problem, and in designing and instigating increasingly repressive drug control legislation at both the state and federal level […] Anslinger also assumed the dominant role as spokesman and advocate for the American interest in international drug control, playing a major role in the evolution of the global drug control. (Nadelmann 1990, 507)

Woodiwiss for his part points to Anslinger’s xenophobic and racist views and his overweening ambition to strengthen the measures available to the law

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enforcement agencies (Woodiwiss 2005, 45–6). In fact, Anslinger carried on being active right up to the early 1960s. The “war on drugs” rhetoric at the political level in the United States and the spreading of its effects at international level stemmed from this securitization of the drugs issue, which increasingly entailed the involvement of law enforcement officials rather than medical personnel (Dudouet 2003, 89–112). To a certain extent Anslinger symbolized what Becker calls “moral enterprise” since “what they (the entrepreneurs) are enterprising about is the creation of a new fragment of the moral constitution of society, its code of right and wrong” (Becker 1963, 145). In this sense, Anslinger’s crusade was particularly interesting because it managed to bring together the securitization of drugs (through the delegitimizing of any type of medical/preventive approach), the protection of the interests of the Federal Bureau responsible for such matters and the activism that was taking place within international bodies. It was in any case within this context that the anti-drug rhetoric offensive of the early 1970s in the United States had its origins. Although commonly associated with Ronald Reagan, the “war on drugs” rhetoric was in fact launched at the beginning of the 1970s by Richard Nixon who, at a press conference on June 17, 1971, made drug abuse “public enemy number 1 in the United States” and announced the creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP). This was followed in July 1973 by the setting up of a “super agency” responsible for all aspects of the drugs “problem:” the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which replaced the Bureau of Narcotics. As Nadelmann points out in his writings on the deployment of DEA agents outside of US territory, this “war on drugs” focused attention on the countries supplying the US market with heroin, cocaine and marijuana by favoring an international approach which also ensured that any discussion of the causes of domestic drug use could be avoided (Nadelmann 1993, 106–7). However, it should be noted that, under the Nixon administration, most of the funding allocated to the drugs issue went on the treatment of addicts rather than to the police. It was in the 1980s in particular, following a lull during the Carter and Ford administrations, that the rhetoric was stepped up under pressure from Nancy Reagan and her “Just Say No” movement in 1984. Nancy Reagan’s crusade (the specific aim of which was to educate parents about the problems caused by drug use) was both national and international and she gave several talks on the subject, in particular at the United Nations on 21 October 1985. On October 27, 1986, Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the main innovation of which was the establishment of a minimum obligatory sentence for drug possession. This gradual criminalization of users, following on from that of traffickers, was accompanied by growing militarization of the “war on drugs” outside of US borders. Numerous academic studies have addressed this US-sponsored “war on drugs” which was stepped up during the 1980s. They have drawn particular



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attention to its inconsistencies and limits (Grayson 2003), especially at domestic level—the stigmatization of ethnic minorities, their overrepresentation in federal prisons and the explosion in prisoner numbers. They have also pointed to its consequences abroad, such as the devastating effects the policy has had in Colombia and the US intervention in Panama. Most of them lay stress on how it has been used to justify an aggressive foreign policy that disregards social, legal and political specificities (Ronderos 2003) as well as to send certain population groups back to the margins of US society (Campbell 1998, 20) and keep certain producing countries that are not allowed to legally produce some of these substances marginalized from the international community Other works have highlighted the fact that the use of war rhetoric has been extended to apply to drugs as well as to the methods used to crack down on them. Ethan Nadelmann stresses in this connection the internationalization of US anti-drug policing practices (Nadelmann 1993) as well as the globalization of the use of the “war on drugs” rhetoric in global prohibition regimes (Nadelmann 1990). The latter allows us to understand the conditions which in 1988 gave rise to the International Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which was heavily influenced by US rhetoric. Its influence was also obvious at the G7 Summit in Paris in 1989. The internationalization of the fight against drugs was also accompanied by discourses that increasingly advocated mobilization around the so-called “support” activities linked to these kinds of crimes, in particular money laundering, which became the dominant discourse throughout the 1990s in all institutions (at national, regional and international level). According to Valsamis Mitsilegas, the first attempt to counter money laundering took place in the 1980s in the context of stepping up the “war on drugs” and under the influence of the United States (Mitsilegas 2003a). Seen as the “motor” which made criminality of all kinds possible, money laundering was thus posed as a transnational threat and the fight against it seen to be justified on the grounds that criminal organizations could not operate without access to financial resources and that they were exploiting existing weaknesses in international financial control systems. Even if the target of the fight against money laundering has changed, its objective has remained more or less the same: to cut off supplies to criminal organizations in order to make them less operational and thereby act as a deterrent. It can thus be said, echoing the words of Gilles Favarel-Garrigues, that “the fight against laundering appeared at the end of the 1980s as a new and appropriate response, redirecting the fight against drugs towards taking action against the proceeds of trafficking” (Favarel-Garrigues 2001, 34). It emerged, in particular, as a result of the Paris Declaration of the Seven in 1989 and the setting up of the FATF. The G7’s appropriation of these mobilizing issues at the political level, at the instigation of the United States and, in particular, Ronald Reagan, together with the setting up of the FATF, which would become the international

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reference point for international action against money laundering, allowed the G7 actors to present themselves as “added value” on the international stage, especially where “global issues” were concerned. The shift that occurred in the mid-1990s, away from fighting drugs trafficking and the laundering of its proceeds to fighting transnational organized crime in general, would enable it to further strengthen the position it had carved out for itself on the international stage. At a more general level, the G7 gradually began to include these “global issues” in its communiqués and its agenda expanded significantly during the 1990s to cover, in particular, environmental issues (forest protection, climate change, desertification, etc.), infectious diseases, human cloning and initiatives concerning Africa. The G7/8’s decision to take up international crime as a new post-Cold War challenge formed part of this shift which would cause a further proliferation of agenda items that were much less concerned with macroeconomic issues.

Chapter 2

From Drug Trafficking to Transnational Organized Crime

It was during the 1990s that the G7 took up the problems associated with globalization and that “transnational organized crime” became one of its main official concerns. The inclusion of the latter on the Seven’s agenda came about as part of what was presented in discourses as the need to manage the uncertainties created by the end of bipolarity, as demonstrated in the preamble to the official communiqué of the 1996 Lyon Summit: “[…] Economic growth and progress in today’s interdependent world is bound up with the process of globalization. Globalization provides great opportunities for the future, not only for our countries, but for all others too. […] Globalization also poses challenges to societies and economies” (Lyon Summit Communiqué, 1996). In 1998, at the Birmingham Summit, the G7/8 identified four problems that reflected the prevailing fears at that time: unemployment, organized crime, the financial panic and world poverty. The aim of this chapter is to understand the shift in G7 discourse from the fight against drug trafficking and the laundering of its proceeds to the fight against transnational crime in its broader sense. The Emergence of “Transnational Organized Crime” on to the International Stage The declarations issued at the two G7 Summits which followed the 1991 London Summit, where the problem of drug trafficking and money laundering had been raised, made no mention at all of international crime. However, it was in fact during this period that political discourses on international crime began to gradually change and the shift away from the “war on drugs” to the fight against transnational organized crime began to occur. Between 1992 and 1994, there was a noticeable change in political discourses and the “threat” posed by international crime was redefined. From 1992, for example, in the discourses of international institutions, especially within the UN, the expression “transnational organized crime,” which until the early 1990s had been seen solely through the prism of drug trafficking and money laundering, began to take on a life of its own, a transformation which was endorsed at international level in 1994 with the holding of the Ministerial Conference on transnational organized crime in Naples under the auspices of the UN.

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For many scholars, the Naples Conference marked the launch of the expression “transnational organized crime” on to the international stage (Sheptycki 2003). However, it was at its own summit, also held in Naples a few months before the UN Conference, that the G7 had launched its own initiative against transnational organized crime. While it is difficult to infer a causal link between the two events, their timing at the very least indicates that there was congruence at the international level with regard to the adoption of the expression “transnational organized crime.” A possible explanation may also perhaps be sought in what was happening in the United States. The explanation in question, which was furthermore reflected in several academic studies (Woodiwiss 2003), lay with the latent failure of the “war on drugs” launched by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and, above all, with the prevailing context at the end of that decade in which the security assumptions of the Cold War era were being called into question. These two factors thus made the use of the term “transnational organized crime” (referring solely to drug trafficking) less viable at the political level. The alleged existence of a “new threat,” namely transnational organized crime, which had been present in US political discourses since the early 1990s, thus led to the broadening of the concept of organized crime to encompass a whole set of transnational criminal practices, thereby making it possible to “excuse” the failure of national and international anti-drugs efforts at the same time as justifying their expansion to other areas. According to the explanation under discussion, the G7 Summit in Naples in July 1994 and the inclusion of transnational organized crime in the Seven’s discussions need to be seen against the specific US context of the time. This argument is supported by the fact that in September 1994, scarcely two months after the G7’s Naples Summit, a conference involving the most senior US police and intelligence officials was organized in Washington. This conference marked the emergence in political discourses of an increasingly alarmist rhetoric about the internationalization of crime which argued that the techniques established in the United States within that framework ought to be employed at international level. At the conference, FBI Director Louis Freeh maintained that the “devastating effects” of transnational crime constituted the most important long-term threat not only to the United States but to all democratic societies and, for his part, CIA Director R. James Woolsey said that “the threats of organized crime transcend traditional law enforcement concerns” (quoted in Woodiwiss 2003, 27). As a result of this conference, there was a growing conviction that the global threat of “transnational organized crime” required an international response and, more specifically, an approach that involved sharing information at international level and standardizing the methods used to pursue criminals. This conviction was further bolstered by the fact that some weeks earlier the US’s partners within the G7 had supported such a stance. From then on, “transnational organized crime” transcended



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crime management within the national framework and became a feature of US foreign policy (Naylor 1995, 38). It cannot be categorically asserted that the United States influenced the G7’s Naples Summit in July 1994 and the UN Conference in Naples in October of the same year. Nevertheless, both gatherings explicitly picked up on US rhetoric and analysis. In particular, there is evidence that US control techniques, especially the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which had been adopted in the United States in 1970 and gave the police and intelligence services increased powers, particularly with regard to surveillance (phone-tapping, greater use of informers, the seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime, etc.), were used as a basis for discussion at the Naples Conference. The latter thus marked a key moment in the process of internationalizing the challenge posed by organized crime because for the first time at global level it formalized the perception of what “transnational organized crime” was by offering a common working definition. “Transnational organized crime” was thus defined as comprising: • the organization of groups for criminal purposes; • the presence of hierarchical or personal links that allow certain individuals to direct the group; • the laundering of illicit proceeds; • the potential to expand into new activities and beyond national borders; • cooperation with other organized transnational groups. The picture of “transnational organized crime” conveyed by these characteristics is of a series of different pyramidal structures which cooperate with each other in order to infiltrate legitimate economies and control territories (Sheptycki 2003, 124). In any event, the discourse used at the Naples Conference made it abundantly clear that the understanding of organized crime that had been developed in the United States was now shared at the global level. At the same time as the issue of drug trafficking and the “war on drugs” rhetoric launched by the United States were being internationalized, especially within the UN, it can be argued that discussions on organized crime within the G7, and also in the European Union, were being Americanized (Anderson and al. 1995; Woodiwiss 2003, 29). This endorsement at international level of the use of the expression “transnational organized crime” nevertheless raises questions as far as its analysis is concerned. “Organized Crime:” A Subject of Debate As Michael Woodiwiss points out in his compelling analysis, the expression “organized crime” originated in the United States in the 1920s in the context

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of Prohibition (Woodiwiss 2003, 2005). The first attempt at federal level to understand organized crime was headed by the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (the Wickersham Commission, set up by President Hoover) in 1931. According to its findings, organized crime consisted of two main areas of activity: fraud (insurance, credit, fraudulent bankruptcy, counterfeit goods, etc), on the one hand, and extortion and racketeering, on the other. The involvement of legal enterprises in these activities was also stressed. Edwin Sutherland, in his two books, White Collar Crime (Sutherland 1949) and White Collar Crime: The Uncut Version (Sutherland 1983), came to the same conclusions: the criminality of certain (legal) enterprises, as well as that of professional thieves, was persistent, widespread, usually unpunished and most of the time deliberate, and entailed the complicity of government officials and legislators. In short, it was organized. These initial analyses, in which greater emphasis was placed on the corrupt relationship between criminals and representatives of the state and law enforcement agencies, were shortlived and, in the post-Prohibition era, the frames of reference changed considerably. It was during the 1950s and, above all, the 1960s that, at the will of the US senatorial and presidential commissions charged with understanding the nature of the phenomenon, the main representations of organized crime were developed. Very specific perceptions of what constituted organized crime emerged from the findings of these commissions, perceptions which later spread outside the country and still shape current understanding of organized crime at international level. The establishment of the Kefauver Committee in the early 1950s helped to make organized crime a national issue within both the political and the public realm. On January 5, 1950 Democratic Party Senator Estes Kefauver submitted resolution 202 to the Senate, requesting that a subcommittee be set up to investigate gambling and racketeering. In May of the same year, he became chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. The main task of the committee was to conduct investigations and produce reports in order to determine whether interstate commerce was being used for the purposes of organized crime and whether such transactions constituted breaches of federal law or the law of the state in which they were carried out. It was also responsible for determining the extent of any such criminal operations that were found to have taken place and, lastly, whether such operations fostered corruption. The holding of public witness hearings which were broadcast on television meant that the committee’s work became known to the general public and Kefauver’s personality played a not insignificant role in ensuring media coverage of the committee’s investigations. The hearings, the first of which were conducted in May 1950, went on for just over a year, with over 600 hearings in more than 10 US cities. The committee’s conclusions, published in May 1951, included the following:



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Crime is on a syndicated basis to a substantial extent in many cities. The two major crime syndicates in this country are the Accardo-Guzik-Fischetti syndicate, whose headquarters are Chicago; and the Costello-Adonis-Lansky syndicate based on New York … There is a sinister criminal organization known as the Mafia operating throughout the country with ties in other nations in the opinion of the committee. The Mafia is the direct descendant of a criminal organization of the same name originating in the island of Sicily. […] The Mafia is the binder which ties together the two major criminal syndicates as well as numerous other criminal groups throughout the country. (Kefauver Committee, Report 3, May 1951)

The committee also reported that widespread corruption enabled such syndicates to flourish. The work of the Kefauver Committee is widely acknowledged to have influenced most representations of organized crime of the time. Scholars who have studied the committee’s work have, however, found a paradox in that its findings are far removed from the early writings on the nature of organized crime in the United States. While the committee’s findings with regard to the corruption of public officials at local and national level and the issue of the legal boundaries at federal level were interesting, it was mainly concern about the threat from abroad that was given greatest emphasis (Moore 1974, 211) and picked up in the media. As its findings show, the committee in fact established an inextricable link between the Mafia and criminal organizations so that Italians became equated with organized crime. This whole theory had been pushed by the above-mentioned Harry Anslinger, who was at that time Director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (Abadinsky 1999, 142). The only evidence put forward by the committee to prove the existence of a Mafia in fact relied on drug-trafficking cases involving ItalianAmerican gangsters reported by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (Woodiwiss 2003, 19). Moreover, when Italian-American racketeers protested that they did not belong to an organization called the Mafia, the committee chose to disregard their denials. Though the committee’s findings largely contributed to the establishment of the myth that there was a Mafia operating on US soil, no actual proof that it existed as an organization was produced. Daniel Bell found hesitation and vagueness in the reports of the hearings where, for example, police officers said that they “believed that …” or the Bureau of Narcotics “thinks that …” (Bell 1953). A significant number of scholars have therefore underlined that it was this particular aspect of the committee’s findings (the alleged penetration by the Italian Mafia) that was the least convincing. The context of the time is undoubtedly one of the most heuristic explanations for how organized crime went from being seen as an integral part of the US system to being an association of gangsters of foreign origin operating on the fringes of the system and constituting a threat to national institutions. According to some scholars, the Cold War context made it difficult for the US political and economic system to be challenged and something as

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allegedly harmful as organized crime could therefore only possibly come from abroad (Woodiwiss 2003, 15–18). During the McCarthy era, it was fashionable to go looking for foreign conspiracies (Abadinsky 1999, 442). The main consequences of the Kefauver Committee findings were that the notion of an external threat, a foreign conspiracy, took root and the idea that officials and the “respectable” classes within society might be involved in any way faded away. They also entrenched within public opinion the view that strengthening the police service and bringing in prohibition were the only possible responses to such a conspiracy. Further widespread support for the alleged existence of a centralized Mafia emerged in the wake of the Kefauver Committee findings. The setting up of a second Senate Committee in 1963, together with the revelations made by its main witness, Joseph Valachi, reinforced them and furnished “living proof ” of the existence of a centralized Mafia of Italian origin. Chaired by Senator McClellan, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a new round of public hearings on organized crime. One of the hearings held in Washington in October 1963 involved Joseph Valachi, a drug trafficker imprisoned in Atlanta (Georgia) and suspected of being an informer of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. For many his testimony was irrefutable proof that a Mafia really did exist on US soil and this threatening criminal association had a name: Cosa Nostra (Paoli 2002, 54). However, as soon as Joseph Valachi had appeared before the Committee, his credibility was called into question by many commentators of the time, who claimed that he was almost illiterate or that he was a “small time” criminal whose knowledge of the “milieu” was confined to street crime activities. Most of the information he divulged thus seemed to go beyond what he was likely to have known. There was also said to be a great deal of inconsistency, weakness and confusion in his testimony (Peterson 1983, 425). It was nevertheless on the basis of his testimony that the final report of President Johnson’s 1967 Commission devoted a whole chapter to the issue of organized crime. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had taken over from John F. Kennedy following the latter’s assassination in 1963, responded to accusations by the Republican Party that the Democrats were soft on crime by setting up the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, as a result of which nine task forces, including one devoted solely to organized crime, were established. In its report to the commission, the task force in question reached the following conclusions: Today the core of organized crime in the United States consists of 24 groups operating as criminal cartels in large cities across the Nation. Their membership is exclusively men of Italian descent, they are in frequent communications with each other, and their smooth functioning is insured by a national body of overseers. To date, only the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been able to document fully the national scope of these



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groups, and the FBI intelligence indicates that the organization as a whole has changed its name from the Mafia to Cosa Nostra. (Quoted in Abadinsky 1999, 444)

The Johnson Commission thus perpetuated the results of the Kefauver Committee, this time making official reference to an organization called Cosa Nostra. An adviser to the Commission, Donald Cressey, was largely instrumental in publicizing the task force’s findings in numerous articles as well as in a landmark book entitled Theft of the Nation (Cressey 1969). In order to put a stop to the threat, the advisers to the Task Force on Organized Crime set up by the Johnson Commission recommended the introduction of a witness protection program, special federal grand juries and legislation authorizing phone-tapping. They were also concerned about the inadequacy of the resources available for combating organized crime and the lack of coordination between the agencies responsible for doing so. Similar recommendations were again put forward during the Nixon administration and in 1970 the Organized Crime Control Act, which in particular incorporated the provisions of the above-mentioned RICO Act, was approved by Congress. The new laws gave the police and intelligence services additional powers, particularly with regard to surveillance (phone-tapping, the widespread use of informers, the seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime, etc). Justification for resorting to such measures had been provided in the conclusions of the Johnson Commission which portrayed organized crime as an army of foreign criminals, a perception that was far removed from earlier studies which had placed greater emphasis on the involvement and possible culpability of “respectable” society, including the police. The 1970s marked a pause in the holding of commissions of enquiry into organized crime in the United States. The increasing focus on civil rights movements and radical black groups such as the Black Panthers indeed deflected the attention of the FBI and federal authorities away from organized criminal groups and, in particular, the Cosa Nostra. It was under the Reagan administration that organized crime again took center stage and acquired the representations most commonly associated with it. The President’s Commission on Organized Crime, chaired by Judge Kaufman, started work in 1983 and produced five reports: one on money laundering, two on the business world and trades unions, one on drug trafficking and the last on the impact of organized crime. Its findings revealed nothing new by comparison with those of the Kefauver and McClellan Committees or the Johnson Commission except with regard to one important aspect: the alleged involvement of criminal groups of non-Italian origin, in particular Colombian groups belonging to the cocaine cartels, and outlaw motorcycle clubs. The Commission also focused on drug trafficking and concluded that drugs were the main source of revenue for organized crime. In the version of the findings submitted to President Reagan, 10 of the 19

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Commission members stressed that they were unhappy with how the work of the Commission had been conducted, alleging that both time and money had been wasted and that important issues had been overlooked, especially with regard to the effectiveness of federal efforts to combat organized crime (Abadinsky 1999, 447). Nevertheless, the report concluded that the Mafia’s position was being challenged by “cartels” from Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world. In this connection, some scholars have maintained that the findings of the Kaufman Commission amounted to an adaptation of the foreign conspiracy thesis, a pluralist revision (Potter 1993, 7) that had been arrived at using the same old frame of reference, namely that forces from outside of US culture were threatening the country’s institutions (Woodiwiss 2003). The Commission also concluded that the federal services clearly needed to increase their vigilance and that the government should strengthen the mechanisms already in place, namely the use of phone-tapping, informers and infiltrators. It neglected one key point: corruption within the business world and the justice system. The fact that the Commission’s conclusions concentrated on drug trafficking (thus largely supplanting gambling, prostitution and racketeering, criminal activities which were the main focus of earlier committees and commissions) was particularly instrumental in encouraging President Reagan to step up the “war on drugs” which, as seen in the previous chapter, had been initiated by President Nixon in the 1970s. This focus on drugs as being the core activity of organized crime also meant that the attention of the authorities was deflected away from the illegal activities of officials: it allowed a different type of “targeting” to take place, one that entailed greater mobilization and resources and which was directed at drug-trafficking criminals, drug users and drug producers, thus dispelling the idea that the state and other “respectable” actors might be involved in organized crime. So the image of organized crime that emerged during the 1970s and 1980s in the United States was one of a monolithic and monopolistic organization. A certain “popular folklore” also grew up around the issue of organized crime and what at that time was synonymous with it, the Mafia. This folklore was fuelled from two directions: on the one hand, the media coverage given to political discussion of the subject in the United States and, on the other, Hollywood films. Most of the witness hearings shown on television during the Kefauver and McClellan Committees and the Johnson and Kaufman Commissions in fact greatly helped to fix the image of the mafioso in the minds of the general public. A good example of this was the public’s obsession with the Kefauver Committee hearings. Although they were not the first to be broadcast on television, they attracted a much bigger audience. Few US homes at that time had television but, nevertheless, many people gathered in bars and restaurants to follow the hearings. The media coverage of these public enquiries and trials helped to establish the founding myths around figures such as Lucky Luciano, Al Capone and their “associates,” Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. Even the



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publication of biographies in which such myths were revisited, showing in particular that most of these “figures” were only chancers and opportunists in the extreme who did not warrant such attention (Messick 1973), did not succeed in diminishing the public’s fascination with them. Hollywood also played greatly on popular representations with such iconic films as Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot and Coppola’s The Godfather (Spinali 2004). The worldwide success of The Godfather trilogy, based on the bestselling novel by Mario Puzo (1969), thus played a significant role in turning the many small conspiracies of which organized crime was composed into just one: the Mafia (Woodiwiss 2005, 75). The influence of this Hollywood folklore was further reinforced in the writings of several journalists who projected an image of a subversive and increasingly international Mafia. The most glaring example is undoubtedly the work of Claire Sterling, a US journalist and the author of two extremely controversial books whose provocative titles guaranteed them mass appeal, Octopus: The Long Reach of the International Sicilian Mafia (1990) and Crime without Frontiers: The Worldwide Expansion of Organized Crime and the Pax Mafiosa (1994). In Octopus, Claire Sterling first describes how the Sicilian Mafia became a multinational heroin cartel, supposedly with tentacles in every continent. Then, during the 1980s, an alliance was allegedly established between the Sicilian Mafia, the Colombian cartels and the Chinese Triads, especially with regard to the sale and trafficking of heroin and cocaine. There were also said to be links between the Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuzas and Hell’s Angels. The book concludes with the emergence of a global Mafia for whom there were no borders. Her 1994 work took on another Mafia octopus: it was now the Russians who had taken over the reins of worldwide criminal activity, in league with their Sicilian, Colombian and Asian associates. The 1990s saw the publication of a plethora of books on these different groups and, though of dubious scientific value, such works have helped to shape public, media and also political perceptions. Such publications, which can be described as “sensationalist,” do not merit further attention. They all served to underpin the picture of a monolithic and monopolistic criminal organization that had been constructed in the United States since the 1950s : this organization now supposedly had international branches; it had become global and was driven by an “ethnic imperative” (Raufer and Quere 2000) that reinforced the foreign conspiracy thesis. This popularized image of the Mafia, as conveyed in the media, the cinema and sensationalist books, undoubtedly helped to give rise to social representations that were both over-simplified and enduring. It was in fact this frame of reference through which from then on criminal groups of all types and in all places would be understood. In this sense it has to be admitted that these journalistic discourses succeeded in crystallizing an image of a Mafia that was exclusive and excluding.

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The “Dark Side” of Globalization and the Imposition of the Image of a “Mafia Octopus” Lastly, to fully understand why “transnational organized crime” came to replace “organized crime” in discourses, we need to look back at the alarmist rhetoric which proliferated in the post-Cold War era and during the advent of what is commonly termed “globalization,” and which has been used by numerous scholars to claim that “transnational organized crime” operates at the global level. The post-Cold War era was in fact clearly viewed as a time of “disorder” and “turbulence” (Rosenau 1990). Such a stormy period was thus deemed to be conducive to the internationalization of organized crime. This first series of arguments, found in a certain section of academic discourse, focused on the changes which had taken place in the political and economic spheres and which had led to the development of all transnational organizations. These changes were purported to be a consequence of the increasing interdependence between states, the ease of transport and communication, the permeability of national borders and the globalization of financial markets; as a result it would be possible for a global market of licit and illicit goods to be established. In such a context, criminal organizations would “naturally” become transnational (Williams 1994, 97). In a chapter devoted to organized crime, Susan Strange, in collaboration with Letizia Paoli, describes the forging of a network of links between criminal organizations throughout the world (Strange 1996, 110–21), allowing alliances to thus be established between the Chinese Triads and the Colombian drug cartels or between the Calabrian Ndrangheta and the Camorra from Campania. As a result of migration flow, the Chinese Triads were now operating throughout Asia: in Malaysia, Singapore, Bangkok. According to Strange and Paoli, a “transnational Mafia diplomacy,” reminiscent of the writings of Claire Sterling described earlier, had been established. All of the main criminal organizations said to comprise “transnational organized crime” were thus labelled according to the origins of each group: the Italian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuzas, the Chinese Triads, the Albanian Mafia and the Turkish maffya, which were seen as the most “traditional,” as well as the Russian mafya, the Jamaican Yardies, the Colombian cartels and the Nigerian crime syndicates, which were seen as newcomers to the illicit market. The ethnic aspect is widely picked up on in the literature to explain the method of organization employed by criminal groups and, according to some, cultural traditions and family ties were what bound criminal groups together (Lupsha 1996, 22). The main overall worry was that states would be powerless to combat such criminal groups. At the political level, some scholars have tried to show that there is a risk of the emergence of Mafia states, that the national security of Western countries is in danger and that the foundations of state authority may even crumble away. Some thus contend that transnational organized crime is a new form of “authoritarianism” (Shelley 1999) because criminal groups exploit



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the weakness of the state which is legally incapable of causing them any real effective damage. Such groups are said to operate in all types of democracies, including major powers in decline and emerging economic powers. They are said to have infiltrated governments and taken on state responsibilities, thereby constituting a threat to democracy, affecting civil society, human rights and freedom of information and creating a climate of intimidation. At the economic level, organized crime is said to have monopolistic tendencies: the acquisition of key sectors of national economies, the exploitation of privatization and the forging of alliances between different criminal groups. Criminal groups are seen not only as challenging state structures but also as counter-governments (Cretin 2002). Such assertions sometimes go even further, claiming that the state is actually in retreat. There is a significant difference, and one that has been largely glossed over by certain scholars, between posing a challenge to the state and forcing it into retreat (Strange 1996). However, implicit in these observations is that “transnational organized crime” should now be seen as an international challenge. The appearance of mainstream specialist academic journals on this subject, the increasing number of sensationalist books on the Mafia octopus (be it Sicilian, Russian or global) and the involvement of some of these authors in think-tanks that influence public policy, especially in the US, have all helped to bring about a mutual reinforcement and legitimation of this type of discourse. However, this unanimity is entirely relative if put back into the context of the whole body of literature on organized crime, especially its “critical” arm. On reading several works on this subject, it soon becomes apparent that they reflect conflicting, divergent and often contradictory views. From this only one conclusion can be reached: a particular (alarmist and sensationalist) frame of reference has been used and propagated to the detriment of other forms of analysis. Adopting a sociological approach to crime makes it possible to question the stereotypes and leitmotif which, by being relayed, repeated and trotted out over and over again in official discourse, the media and some academic works, have obscured the complexity of the notion of organized crime in favor of a simplistic and caricatured interpretation. It is an approach which is more measured and cautious with regard to the supposed threat posed by “transnational organized crime.” It tries to remind us that organized crime is not a new phenomenon that only emerged at the end of the Cold War. The argument that organized crime is a new threat, more serious than it was in the past, is therefore not very convincing. The proponents of these types of theories contend that what is known as organized crime is actually disorganized crime, picking up in this sense on the writings of Reuter (Reuter 1983). For two decades, scholars have in fact challenged this recurring interpretation centered on organization and have tried to show that most of the old-style criminal hierarchies have reorganized (or may in fact have always been fairly loose networks) and are now more like “disorganized” networks, made up of

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ephemeral groups and alliances that depend on the market dynamic. Today, most of these scholars agree that organized crime is not a corporatist-type of organization or one that conforms to the enterprise model and believe that its networks are often confined to relatively limited geographical areas, thus restricting their ability to be transnational. The picture of “transnational organized crime” thus suggested is more one of fragmented, localized and fluid networks that lack formal and monolithic organization (Beare and Naylor 1999). These scholars do not deny that there are criminal groups throughout the world and that indeed they are sometimes powerful and enduring but they accuse the alarmist discourses of undermining attempts to understand the phenomenon by casting a veil over the anarchy which characterizes relations between such groups and, in particular, covering up the role played by “legitimate” institutions in criminal activities that are supposedly the exclusive preserve of individuals operating outside the law (Woodiwiss 2003, 29). That is not to say that there are no forms of illicit activity that transcend national boundaries. It is quite clear, for example, that the places in which drugs are produced are different to those in which they are distributed, meaning that they have to be transported and that relationships and understandings have to be established with those responsible for getting them to their destination. What needs to be stressed, however, is that using expressions such as “criminal enterprises” or “criminal corporations” helps to legitimize the image of an international, hierarchical, invisible and thus threatening octopus, which will be picked up in the discourses of international organizations, while the reality on the ground shows that the use of the adjectives “transnational” and “organized,” in this context, supposedly as a means of justifying the need for specific action at the global level, has been overdone. Overall, studies that have taken a cautious approach to analyzing TOC and which have challenged the dubious notion of an “ethnic imperative” and/or the existence of a highlystructured criminal hierarchy or transnational enterprise have helped to ensure that the simplification and stereotypes that underlie the term “transnational organized crime” are called into question (Bigo 1993; Anderson and al. 1995; Levi 1998; Brodeur 2002; Den Boer 2002; Favarel-Garrigues 2002; Beare 2003; Edwards and Gill 2003; Sheptycki 2003). In order to understand why there are such differences of opinion in studies on organized crime, the problem of sources needs to be examined in more depth. In 1978, Peter Reuter and Jonathan Rubinstein laid great stress on the allpowerful role played by the police as far as what was known about organized crime was concerned. Referring in particular to the “insularity” of the police in this regard, they wrote, not without some irony, that, “Most discussions (on organized crime) end up sounding like debates about UFO’s: Those who have seen one are arrayed on one side, and all of those who have never seen one but dispute the validity or interpretation of the observations are on the other” (Reuter and Rubinstein 1978, 59). With regard to the Kefauver Committee, they raised the issue of the delicate position in which researchers



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are placed when it comes to the level and quality of police knowledge: “The Kefauver Committee undertook no independent investigation or analysis; instead, it provides a forum for information and theories advanced by local police and former FBI agents” (Reuter and Rubinstein 1978, 57). In order to explain how this committee nevertheless managed to impose its findings, Reuter and Rubinstein suggested that its assertions were bureaucratically and politically convenient and that they emanated from state agencies that had control over intelligence sources. In attacking, in particular, Donald Cressey (who, as we saw in the previous chapter, had been “converted” to the idea of a Mafia conspiracy), they underlined their reservations about the monopoly the police had over information and analysis of the data they gathered. In this regard, they pointed out that government statements and reports by legislative committees tended to mainly reformulate police views. Reuter and Rubinstein thus very early on articulated what constitutes the Achilles heel of the use of the expression “transnational organized crime:” the fact that the available knowledge is inaccurate, often originating from sources that are biased and statistics that are unreliable or “slanted” in favor of particular (especially professional) interests. In this respect the role of police sources in the confusion caused by the use of the expression “transnational organized crime” is not negligible since many of the problematic assertions highlighted earlier are founded on police claims. In the view of these critical studies, crime and criminals certainly cross borders but they are usually “disorganized” and their actions limited and isolated. The scale of the threat transnational organized crime allegedly poses should therefore be treated with the utmost caution. As a consequence, the term “transnational organized crime” is left extremely weakened. There is no unanimity about the contours, nature and dangerousness of the transnational organized crime that has been built up into a global threat in official discourses, especially in the United States. In light of the above, it is clear that one particular frame of reference, that of the transnational threat and “transnational organized crime,” has been preferred at global level, especially at the level of the United Nations and the G7, to the detriment of another, one which challenges that very concept. Given the complexity of the “transnational organized crime” revealed here, should international mobilization against it, especially that undertaken by the G7/8, therefore be reconsidered from a critical viewpoint? In any event, it is clear that the institutional consequences of the use of that particular frame of reference and the placing of “transnational organized crime” on the G7/8’s agenda during the 1990s need to be interpreted with a certain degree of caution.

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Chapter 3

The G8’s Involvement in the International Mobilization against Transnational Organized Crime

If what has been demonstrated in the previous chapter is accepted, namely that the expression “transnational organized crime” is a social construct and that it remains an empty concept, then it has to be admitted that its “launch” on to the international stage in the 1990s was not the result of having uncovered a specific type of criminality. Many studies have shown that it was in fact the product of a process that sought, for practical and political reasons, to group a wide variety of different offences together in the same category in such a way that they had the symbolic force necessary to inspire mobilization and could therefore be combated. This argument is thus to be found in a wealth of critical studies on transnational organized crime which bring to light semantic shifts that shaped the way in which the expression “transnational organized crime” was imposed on the international stage: from drug trafficking to money laundering and corruption to illegal immigration, via human trafficking and cybercrime (Anderson et al. 1995; Bigo 1996; Den Boer 1999; Favarel-Garrigues 2002; Sheptycki 2003; Woodiwiss 2003, 2005). The fluctuating categories used in discourses clearly demonstrate the malleable and problematic nature of the expression “transnational organized crime.” That is why, in order to grasp the reasons for the Seven’s mobilization against organized crime in the 1990s, it is necessary to first of all try to understand how seven countries whose experiences of crime varied considerably were able to reach agreement about the need to act in concert to combat organized crime and what part this agreement played in reinforcing the discourse of fear at international level. Social Representations of Transnational Organized Crime within the G7 Countries Despite the debate surrounding the use of the expression “transnational organized crime,” in 1994 the term achieved specific recognition at international level, both within the UN and the G7. The Naples Summit of the G7 countries in July 1994 should thus be seen as the Seven’s agreement to expand their sphere of action and take their full place in the international struggle against

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transnational organized crime. The US influence within the G7 mentioned earlier should, however, be qualified. Though important, it largely echoed similar concerns within each of the other member countries. Indeed, the Seven’s mobilization against transnational organized crime was made possible primarily because the seven countries in question shared a common a priori belief about the danger posed by this type of crime, a belief that was further strengthened by the fact that the representations of organized crime most frequently seen in those countries tended to reiterate the alarmist imagery highlighted earlier. While it is not the intention to look in detail here at the criminal practices in question, it is nevertheless in many respects heuristic to look back at the perceptions of organized crime that were the most entrenched and widespread at the time in order to understand the common interest the Seven had in taking up the issue collectively. If most of these social representations—understood here to mean the collective designation of a process, generated through social interaction, whereby reality is appropriated and restructured, in other words, common sense knowledge (Abric 1994; Jodelet 1996, 365)—are to be believed, the G7 countries could be broadly divided into two main categories: • those that had experience of organized crime of the traditional and localized kind but which was now spreading on to the international stage. Japan and Italy, for example, had become almost synonymous with a mafia that was ancestral and pernicious, infiltrated and subversive, and which had international pretensions; • those in which criminal groups were a foreign import, in other words the other European countries of the G7 (France, Germany and UK), Canada and the United States. These social representations, which were in fact rather simplistic, found support in many different arenas, including sensationalist books, a wide swathe of the mass media and cinematic works. At first, at a time when the creation of a European space in which borders were to be abolished was viewed as detrimental to the security of member countries, the theme of invasion conjured up particular images, especially in the European countries of the G7, as shown by expressions such as “sieve Europe.” It was in fact at the end of the 1980s when social representations of organized crime began to change in this respect. In France, for example, the understanding of organized crime that prevailed in media circles was for a long time derived from the use of the word milieu to denote criminal associations operating on its soil. It was the name given, for example, to the criminal structures operating in Southeastern France (such as the Marseille milieu or the Corsican milieu) which achieved notoriety in the 1960s as a result of the so-called “French Connection.” In the 1980s, it was the international nature of certain offences which began to give cause for concern (for instance, “cross-border crime” started to be mentioned),



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a concern that grew in line with the pace of European integration (Bisiou 2004, 630). At the beginning of the 1990s, the perception of organized crime in France took a new direction, with much greater emphasis being placed on its hierarchical structure as well as the alleged penetration of the country by foreign criminal groups. The foreign penetration theme found similar success in Germany (Lindlau 2002) and UK (Thompson 1996; Morton 2003). The representations of organized crime that prevailed in the United States and Canada were not very different in this regard. As described earlier, the findings of the various commissions of enquiry held in the United States had supported the same thesis. According to many commentators, the social representations of organized crime in Canada were greatly influenced by the American ones. While for a long time Hell’s Angels embodied the commonest representation of organized crime in Canada, attention increasingly turned to the supposed links between American and Canadian gangsters and, worse still, Canada was depicted as a refuge for American criminals. In the early 1990s, the media emphasized the “transnational” dimension of organized crime, focusing increasingly on criminal groups operating in Canada who were defined by their ethnic origins. The cases of Italy and Japan are particularly rich in imagery since they have become synonyms for the Mafia and Yakuza respectively and crystallize the most common fears about penetration and infiltration. They are in this sense a good example of the most tenacious representations of organized crime. They combine at one and the same time the notions of local corruption, predatory violence and an international octopus. Italy, in particular, embodies these alarmist aspects. The Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra in Naples, the Calabrian Ndrangheta and, more recently, the Sacra Corona Unita from Apulia are all criminal groups that have spawned a very strong mythology. The collusion between these criminal groups and state representatives has been a constant in the literature on the Mafia, together with their specific features, namely the strength of the family, a sense of honor, and respect for hierarchy and omerta (Cesoni 2004, 507). Japan is also rich in fanciful representations. What distinguishes the Yakuza from other criminal organizations is that they are open and there is no secrecy around membership. Statistics are therefore readily available: according to one study conducted by the Japanese police in 1980, there were 2,487 organized criminal groups in Japan, with 103,955 members (Iwai 1986). Usually taking the form of official associations, the Yakuza were for a long time accepted by society but later became increasingly vilified. For example, during the 1970s allegations of links between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Yakuza mounted and the public’s positive view of the latter as “chivalrous bandits” who were the heirs to Samurai values was severely shaken (Bouissou 1999). There were also claims of collusion between the Yakuza and the financial world at the time of the financial crisis in the early 1990s.

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In ascribing predatory pretensions beyond their own territory to these criminal groups, the social representations of both the Italian and Japanese situations that prevailed outside of those two cultures were very influential in spreading the idea that such groups were acting on the international stage. Indeed sensationalist literature frequently portrays the Italian Mafia as having penetrated North America and the Yakuza as having penetrated the whole of Asia (Kaplan and Dubro 1990). On concluding this brief analysis of the most commonly shared representations of organized crime in the seven countries of the G7, it has to be said that organized crime is usually thought of as a mafia and that its “transnational” aspect is thought of as involving foreign penetration and infiltration by groups which have arrived as a result of immigration and/or have established international connections. The problem of finding sources of information when it comes to examining transnational organized crime also helps to explain why the prevailing representations and perceptions of organized crime in the seven countries of the G7 were so vague. While government statements and reports by legislative committees tended to reproduce police views of organized crime, the latter by no means provided precise information on the subject whose existence they were seeking to assert. For example, a 1993 parliamentary report to the French National Assembly (Rapport de la commission d’enquête sur les moyens de lutter contre les tentatives de pénétration de la mafia en France, AN No. 9251, JO 28/01/93), known as the Aubert report, from the name of the member of Parliament who prepared it, and which was based mainly on police sources, lent credence to the existence of foreign criminal penetration in France by mentioning “dubious” investments in casinos and golf clubs, establishments that were pervaded by a “mafia stench” (Rapport de la commission d’enquête sur les moyens de lutter contre les tentatives de pénétration de la mafia en France, 69), but gave no specific details. Direct statements from police officers were similarly vague. Commissioner Harvison of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), for example, when questioned at a press conference at the time of the Canadian National Canadian Exhibition in 1963, said: Now whether it is actual Mafia or whether it is developed along the Mafia lines is a subject of debate among policemen. Certainly the form of organization is Mafia like, their disciplines are Mafia disciplines, so that it follows if the American Syndicates are moving into Canada or attempting to move into Canada then this syndicate’s being organized along Mafia lines. It’s a Mafia type organization that’s coming in, but to say that it is definitely the Mafia, I just don’t know … (Quoted in Beare and Naylor 1999)

This virtual absence of alternative sources thus allowed an alarmist and often romantic view of organized crime to develop. This was particularly true of the Italian Mafias. As pointed out by Jean-Louis Briquet, the main difficulty that arises when trying to analyze the Mafia is that “whatever is known about



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[it] always comes from trying to unveil a secret institution” (Briquet 1995, 139). Understanding of this criminal “structure,” as gleaned by anthropologists, political scientists and historians, has evolved over time. The Mafia has thus been seen variously as a specifically Sicilian social phenomenon, a selfgoverning criminal enterprise or, on the contrary, an informal criminal group with little or no structure. These different theories and the discussions they have provoked (see Arlacchi 1986; Gambetta 1993) will not be examined here. What is evident, however, is the lack of consensus among researchers about the structure and nature of both the Mafia and the Yakuza. As for the supposed transnationalization of the Italian and Japanese Mafia, this appears to have been largely overstated and no serious and methodologically convincing study has ever shown it to exist. Nevertheless, despite the existence of more cautious approaches, it was definitely an alarmist perception of the mafia phenomenon that was deployed in G7 discourses on transnational organized crime. The constant overtures made to Russia following the fall of the USSR and its gradual incorporation into the P8 and later the G8 allowed a third category to be added to the G7’s perceptions of organized crime, namely that of a “new” or, in any event, reinvigorated form of organized crime that was resolutely intent on international infiltration. The case of Russia deserves special attention since its gradual incorporation into the G7 during the 1990s appears to have been directly linked to this “western fear of the Russian mafia” (Favarel-Garrigues, 2001). Russia’s Incorporation into the G8 From the very beginning of the 1990s, there was indeed evidence in G7 discourses of growing concern about the consequences of the fall of the USSR and, in particular, fear that crime would rise in the countries of the former Soviet block. The declaration issued at the London Summit in 1991, which reiterated support for the UN and the FATF, also introduced a new dimension to the drug trafficking problem. Against a background in which the Cold War had ended and the USSR was disintegrating, the G7 made the following announcement: We will increase our efforts to reduce the demand for drugs as a part of overall anti-drug action programmes. We maintain our efforts to combat the scourge of cocaine and will match these by increased attention to heroin, still the principal hard drug in Europe and Asia. Enhanced co-operation is needed both to reduce production of heroin in Asia and to check its flow into Europe. Political changes in Central and Eastern Europe and the opening of frontiers there have increased the threat of drug misuse and facilitated illicit trafficking, but have also given greater scope for concerted Europewide action against drugs. (London Summit Communiqué 1991)

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The addition of this new dimension, which was more concerned with the risks the former USSR states in transition posed for drug trafficking in the future, raises questions about Russia’s gradual incorporation into the Seven’s discussions, given the inclusion of transnational organized crime among G7 concerns. This perspective is novel insofar as current research tends to view Russia’s involvement as a spontaneous act of generosity on the part of the G7 towards a country in transition. Though Russia began to participate in G7 discussions as part of the P8 in 1994, it is essential to stress that in fact it participated fully in the activities of the Lyon Group, the G8’s expert group on transnational crime, from the moment it was set up in 1995. This therefore confirms that the member countries of the G7 were anxious to have actors from that state, which was seen as potentially dangerous and criminogenic, involved right from the start. The 1991 London Summit declaration, which referred to the political changes taking place in the former USSR and concerns about their possible implications for the development of illicit trafficking, in fact coincided with the sending of the first invitation to Gorbachev to participate in a G7 summit. The end of the Cold War and the break up of the Soviet Union gave the G7 an opportunity to provide economic aid to the Eastern-block countries, and Russia in particular, to enable them to move towards democracy and a market economy. However, this desire to help the Eastern-block countries only partially explains Russia’s gradual incorporation into the G7. Russia’s inclusion is all too often explained in the literature as stemming from the Seven’s wish not to leave Russia isolated in the midst of an economic slump and to contain a country that might give rise to an explosive situation (Kirton 1997; Bayne 2000; Penttila 2003). This explanation, however, fails to mention the fact that Russia had been fully involved in discussions within the G7’s experts’ group on transnational organized crime as early as 1995, which suggests that growing concern about the “danger” of the development of illicit trafficking stressed in official communiqués may have also been a reason for Russia’s incorporation. The destabilizing potential of the collapse of the USSR was in fact inseparable from the widespread fear that these states in transition would become the victims or the perpetrators of an upsurge in crime. The stigmatization of what was known as the “Russian mafia” during the 1990s stemmed from these fears and was prevalent in many discourses, be they those of academics, tabloid journalists or official representatives. In fact, since the end of the 1980s, there have been countless works on the emergence of the “Russian mafia” (Williams 1996; Shelley 1999). The idea of a “Russian threat” was also conveyed in official reports. Indeed, there was a burgeoning of parliamentary, police and academic reports on the subject in the early 1990s. The “Russian mafia” therefore became the main focus of the social representations of international crime that prevailed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some sensationalist works also placed heavy emphasis on its



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alleged penetration of Western countries. As a result, a single fixed view of these criminal groups emerged: they were seen as tightly structured and wellorganized and having the necessary financial means at their disposal to spread their activities throughout the world, especially the West. Were these alarmist accounts of the state of organized crime in Russia and their circulation within official circles one of the main reasons why the G7 accorded Russia such importance during the 1990s? When in 1994 the expression “transnational organized crime” appeared for the first time in the declaration issued by the Naples Summit, specific mention was made of the risk that “countries in transition” would play a role in increasing the danger posed by organized crime at world level: We are alarmed by the growth of organized transnational crime, including money laundering, and by the use of illicit proceeds to take control of legitimate business. This is a world-wide problem with countries in transition increasingly targeted by criminal organisations. We are determined to strengthen international cooperation to address this situation. (Naples Summit Communiqué 1994)

This extract needs to be assessed: though not explicitly cited, how is it not possible to understand that it was Russia that was at most risk? This interpretation is confirmed if the reading of the situation that prevailed at that precise moment in time in the USA is also borne in mind. As Gilles FavarelGarrigues points out, it is difficult to divorce the importance accorded to Russian organized crime in the Western world in the early 1990s from the US context. According to him, the fall of the Berlin Wall in fact took place in a context in which the flow of transnational crime was already seen as a threat to internal US security. The euphoric fantasy in which Russia and other Soviet republics would undergo a rapid and successful transition towards a market economy and democracy quickly gave way to concerns on two fronts: the disintegration of a formidable military power and the increasing influence of organized crime within post-Soviet society. (FavarelGarrigues 2001)

Here too, however, whether the fear engendered by the “Russian mafia” was justifiable is hard to assess and remains entirely relative given the limited number of sources available. Again according to Gilles Favarel-Garrigues, the appearance of crime statistics and media investigations at the end of the 1980s, in the context of glasnost, led to the “constitution of a mafia problem” in the USSR, resulting in a proliferation of views which were far from unanimous as well as polarized along ideological lines (Favarel-Garrigues 2001, 16–17). The fact that the only sources of information on the issue were the police and the Interior Ministry and the virtual absence until more recently of alternative

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sociological sources left the way free for the emergence of a number of different interpretations which it was hard to refute or confirm. Fortunately the recent publication of new studies has shed new light on the subject and it appears, from reading them, that the objectivization of a Russian mafia or Russian organized crime is questionable. These studies, based on alternative sources, certainly recognize the high levels of crime and violence in Russia but they also lay stress on the manufactured nature of the terms Russian “mafia” and “organized crime” (Gilinski and Kostioukovski 2001). Taking this approach, which is rarely considered when viewing Russia’s incorporation into the G8 from the perspective of the international struggle against transnational organized crime, makes it possible to develop the argument most often put forward in works dealing with Russia’s incorporation into the P8 and then the G8. While the basic argument was that, in gradually incorporating Russia, the G7 sought to help a country in transition, another important reason for doing so would seem to have been the problem of “transnational organized crime.” According to a participant interviewed at the time, the main reason why, at the Halifax Summit, the G7 decided to set up a “Senior Experts’ Group on Transnational Organized Crime” was because they were concerned about the dangers posed by the Eastern Block countries in transition (interview with a participant at the time, January 16, 2003, Paris). Even though, at the Kananaskis Summit in 2002, the distinction between the G7 and P8 was abandoned once and for all, there is other evidence to support this argument. These days, Russia still does not systematically participate in all G8 structures. For example, it does not attend meetings of the G7 Finance Ministers on macroeconomic matters but it does participate fully in their discussions about combating money laundering. What is more, in 1999, when it was still not a full member of the G8, it organized a meeting of G8 Justice and Interior Ministers in Moscow to specifically address such issues. The G7/8 Adds its Voice to the International Chorus against Transnational Crime By analyzing the prevailing social representations of organized crime in the member countries of the G7 and later the G8 in this way, it is possible to bring out the apparent points of convergence which undoubtedly paved the way for mobilization to begin. The G7/8, in appropriating the most alarmist discourses, thus does not appear to have been alone in spreading the idea of transnational organized crime at international level. The issue also began to feature on the agendas of some of the major international fora at that time (from the end of the 1980s until the mid-1990s) and it is clear from detailed examination of the discourses used to support this move and justify international mobilization that they shared a common rhetoric and points of reference.



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The initial pronouncements made on transnational organized crime by the main international bodies that took it up as a key issue were explanatory or justificatory in nature and stressed the danger it was deemed to pose. It was dressed up in such a way that it appeared to embody a threat that was all the more serious because it constituted a specific type of offence that was able to flourish by taking advantage of the opportunities provided by a more open world. The existence of a context in which the bipolar order had given way to globalization was thus deemed to have laid the conditions for the emergence of transnational criminal groups. For example, in his opening speech at the World Ministerial Conference on Organized Crime in Naples on 22 November 1994, United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali pointed out that “[t]raditional crime organizations themselves have, in a very short time, succeeded in adapting to the new international context to become veritable crime multinationals” (Opening Speech, 1994). At its Birmingham Summit in 1998, the G7 said the following: Of the major challenges facing the world on the threshold of the 21st century, this Summit has focused on three: achieving sustainable economic growth and development throughout the world […]; building lasting growth in our own economies in which all can participate, creating jobs and combating social exclusion; tackling drugs and transnational crime which threaten to sap this growth, undermine the rule of law and damage the lives of individuals in all countries of the world. (Birmingham Summit Communiqué 1998)

Seen as a “new” threat or, in any event, one that had been given new life as a consequence of globalization, organized criminal groups were presented as all the more dangerous because they operated in the shadows, hidden from view and completely outside of state control. In 1994 Boutros Boutros-Ghali spoke of “forces of darkness.” The penetration of democratic structures by these groups was also purported to be evident. The conclusions of the first meeting of Interior Ministers of the Council of Europe on the issue of panEuropean police cooperation, held in Strasbourg in November 1998, included the following comments: The Ministers note with concern the gravity of the situation, as described by several speakers at the meeting. They note the increase in the number of serious offences, the growth and diversification of the activities of organised criminal groups, and their infiltration of the political, economic and social fabric. (Pan-European police cooperation, Conclusion, November 5–6, 1998)

At the G7’s Okinawa Summit in 2000, the following statement was included in the official communiqué: “Rapid globalisation has opened up new opportunities for pursuing more fulfilling lives. But it has also created

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new room for criminal exploitation, challenging the basic rules of our social, economic and political systems” (Okinawa Summit communiqué 2000). Some EU reports, furthermore, painted criminal groups in interesting terms that are reminiscent of those traditionally used in the military lexicon to refer to guerrillas, describing them, for example, as “small groups […] [which] are moved around quickly but never stay long in one location” (Europol Public Report 2004). That such an “army of darkness” should exist was also said to expose the difficulties the state authorities had in dealing with them without changing their structures, as shown in the following statement: “Transnational criminal groups can often adapt to global change more swiftly and efficiently than our governments” (Denver Summit Communiqué 1997). On the one hand, states were unable to manage such a diffuse and wideranging threat; on the other, international cooperation, the only possible response to a transnational challenge, was required. At its Denver Summit, the G7 announced, for example, the following measures: We also will develop additional methods to secure our borders. […] Our governments will also move further ahead with efforts to strengthen international legal regimes for extradition and mutual legal assistance, to ensure that no criminal receives safe haven anywhere in the world. (Denver Summit Communiqué 1997)

The issue of border protection was also a key point in the conclusions reached by the Interior Ministers of the Council of Europe: In a world where frontiers are losing some of their importance, any analysis of organised crime must start from an international standpoint. They are convinced that an international perspective and international resources hold the only key to effective action against international criminal groups and unlawful trafficking. (Pan-European police co-operation, Conclusion, November 5–6, 1998)

These extracts all serve to show that cooperation was deemed to be essential and that international regulation, which would require its own tools, needed to be set in place. Very similar discourses on transnational organized crime, often indistinguishable from one institution to another, thus proliferated at the institutional level. They thus largely closed off the terms of debate on the actual use of the expression “transnational organized crime” highlighted earlier. Several elements that were crucial for understanding the performative view of transnational organized crime that had been developed appeared at the core of these pronouncements, namely that it was invisible, diffuse but structured, powerful and subversive (Bigo 1993; Brodeur 2002). Cooperation, especially at the level of the judiciary and the police, was thus amply justified



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by the following maxim: such criminal groups should not be able to find refuge anywhere in the world. It needs to be said that this recognition of the alleged danger posed at international level has masked the coherence of the label “TOC”—the acronym commonly used to refer to transnational organized crime—as a target and that the apparent unanimity around it has masked its malleability. While “TOC” may be a useful label that crystallizes fears and arouses both interest and fascination, thereby guaranteeing mobilization as well as public support for such mobilization, it nevertheless still remains an empty concept on which official discourses have been unable to shed much light or at least no more than discourses of the sensationalist kind have been able to do. These problematic aspects therefore make it necessary to look in more depth at how the international mobilization against organized crime, especially that of the G7/8, has been interpreted. In this regard, another major identifiable debate in the literature on transnational organized crime has revolved around analysis of the institutional approaches set in place to combat transnational organized crime at the international level. In fact, a good many of the academic studies that have examined the inclusion of transnational organized crime on international agendas have contended that it is a consequence of the spread of mafiatype phenomena across the globe and thus see international cooperation to combat such phenomena as a “natural” reaction in the face of the new challenges engendered by globalization. In many of such studies, the authors have therefore contented themselves with simply describing these same measures, often just listing the initiatives taken by different regional and/or international organizations, all of which are seen as constituting “progress” in tackling an issue that is described as being of such fundamental importance that it is detrimental to the survival of international security and stability. Once that approach is adopted, the international discourses used by the main international and/or regional organizations, all of which stress the urgent need for cooperation, especially at police and judicial level, are constantly repeated and presented as an appropriate response to a known and recognized threat. In response to this functionalist-type approach, some internationalists, including many Europeanists, have studied the use of the label “transnational organized crime” from the perspective that there was a connection between the emergence of TOC as a major issue in the discourses of international institutions and the fact that it was in the interests of those institutions to use that particular label so that it could be included in (or excluded from) their activities and work, and not from the perspective that, in a context where a particular view of the world had been shaken, there was a “natural” opportunity to increase international cooperation (Anderson et al. 1995; Den Boer 2002). In the critical studies devoted, for example, to the inception of judicial and police cooperation at EU level, especially within the third pillar and the construction of European security, some scholars have thus very effectively reversed perspective by mainly considering the difficulties surrounding the

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use of the expression “transnational organized crime,” difficulties that had been largely glossed over because of its potential to increase mobilization and cooperation. Similar comments have been made in the case of the UN (Mitsilegas 2003b). Moreover, in most studies on the international mobilization against transnational organized crime, the G8 is rarely mentioned as being one of the actors involved in the international struggle against transnational organized crime and those studies that have mentioned it have tended to merely adopt a realist and functionalist approach. They have thus dealt with the subject from the perspective of the G8’s response to the “new challenges” thrown up by globalization. In doing so, they have picked up on statements from official communiqués that show the G8 to be reacting mechanically to the supposed “new threats” thrown up in the wake of the Cold War, prominent among which has been transnational organized crime (Bayne 2005). Many academic studies thus rely on an understanding that would like reactivity (international mobilization) to a specific phenomenon (“transnational organized crime”) to be the only possible explanation for why TOC came to climb up the agendas of international institutions. If that method of analysis was to be adopted here, the conclusion would be that the issue of “transnational organized crime” was taken up by the G7 as a consequence of its desire to respond to an unprecedented international challenge, thus inducing it to depart from its original mission which had been geared more to macro-economic considerations. However, such methods of analysis simply reiterate the content of official discourses, which present all action taken as being an appropriate response to a known and recognized threat. As Murray Edelman points out, most academic writing accepts the same view of the link between social problems and attempts to solve them as public officials like to espouse: that as problems appear, responsible agencies search for the best way to cope with them […] The emphasis is on the rationality of the search process even if it is bounded. […] Those who favor a particular course of governmental action are likely to cast about for a widely feared problem to which to attach it in order to maximize its support. This process is not necessarily self-conscious or deliberately deceptive. […] the link between problems and preferred solutions is itself a construction that transforms an ideological preference into a rational governmental action. (Edelman 1988, 21–2)

In the vein of the frame of reference proposed by Murray Edelman, several academic works have pointed to the use of the label “transnational organized crime” as justification for increasing international cooperation, especially at the level of the judiciary and police, thereby allowing institutions to reposition themselves on the international stage at a time when a particular view of the world (the bipolar view) had been shaken (Anderson et al. 1995). By addressing



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the problem of “transnational organized crime” as an instrument, and not as a cause-effect relationship, of international cooperation, it is possible to rectify an interpretation that is far too mechanical. Lastly, while the official G8 statements provide valuable clues that help to reveal the G7/8’s agenda on a number of issues, they also convey a single and undifferentiated face of the G7/8 that simply embodies the will of the Heads of State and Government of the member countries. This means that all too often a top-down approach is taken to the G7/8, in other words one that focuses solely on the Heads of State and Government who draw up the G7/8 agenda, apparently freed of bureaucratic constraints. This approach is doubly inappropriate. First of all, it considerably minimizes the impact of the preparatory processes of these summits, in which the bureaucracies of the member countries are constantly involved. Secondly, it conveys a picture of the G7/8 that is insufficiently fleshed out, giving precedence to the voice of an undifferentiated G7/8 and disregarding any differences and/or disparities that might arise between partner countries. While it was clearly the Heads of State and Government who in 1989 decided to include drug trafficking and money laundering in their joint declaration at the Paris Summit, the growing importance that transnational organized crime has had in their concerns since then has led them to increasingly delegate the issue to the lower échelons of their respective administrations. It is in this light that the G8’s decision to set up a group of experts on transnational organized crime should be understood. The official declarations and the literature say virtually nothing about this group of experts. Should it therefore be concluded that the role of these G8 experts is unimportant?

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Chapter 4

The Creation of Expertise on Transnational Organized Crime within the G8 System

The G8’s decision to set up a group of experts on transnational organized crime, which in 1996 became known as the Lyon Group, marked a turning point as far as the inclusion of this issue on its agenda was concerned. At first sight, the group seems to have been set up in response to a need for additional expertise and to have been seen as an act of delegation on the part of the Heads of State and Government of the member countries to “specialists” who could shed light on the issue of transnational organized crime and provide them with the technical information they needed to design a strategy for combating it at the international level. Between 1995 and 2001, the Lyon Group thus unceasingly applied itself to contributing its collective and collegial expertise to the G8. It inserted itself into the workings of the G8 system and its work was disseminated at both summit and ministerial meeting level. Favoring a very pragmatic and above all operational approach in order to facilitate international cooperation, the G8 experts on transnational organized crime were, right from the start, extremely successful in achieving consensus among the Eight and carried on being so throughout the period under examination here (1995–2001). Introducing Expertise on Transnational Organized Crime into the G8 G8 summits may no longer be unfamiliar to the media and the general public but these annual meetings of the Heads of State and Government from the member states, which many see as a closed and exclusive club, conceal a whole process of advance preparation, involving a large number of actors who remain hidden behind official and media communiqués. In reality most of the workings of the G8 system take place inside the national administrations of the member countries. Once the G8 was created in 1975, the growth of its agenda in fact led to a gradual division of labor that is coordinated at the level of the relevant ministers and expert groups dealing with any given subject before being “referred back” via the sherpas to the summits, which in the end have become just the visible part of a now well-oiled machine. The establishment

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of the Senior Experts’ Group on Transnational Organized Crime formed part of this growing institutionalization of the G8’s activities. The preparation process for summits changed considerably from the 1980s onwards and gradually became institutionalized within the administrations of the member countries. With the preparatory process binding them to their respective administrations, there was less and less scope for initiatives by Heads of State or Government and therefore increasingly little room for spontaneity at meetings. Another consequence of this institutionalization of the preparatory process was that the different components of the G8 system began to operate independently of each other. It is worth examining the way in which the fight against transnational organized crime was organized within that system in order to understand how the G8 claimed to have acquired specialist knowledge and know-how with regard to the issue. Below the peak of any G8 summit, first there are the sherpas, who are responsible for coordinating the preparations. As the personal representatives of their leaders, they operate behind the scenes and the way in which they are appointed varies from country to country (Ardouin 1996). They are assisted by two sous-sherpas, one each from the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs. Until the early 1990s they all met together. However, as the agenda expanded, each subgroup began to meet separately. The sherpas are often likened to a micro institution within the G8. They hold five or six preparatory meetings in the form of working weekends during the six months preceding each summit. Then there are the ministerial groups. To start with the Ministers of Finance and Foreign Affairs directly assisted the Heads of State and Government at summits. However, they gradually became increasingly independent of them. At the Tokyo Summit in 1986, the G7 Finance Ministers began to meet on the margins of the summits themselves. The same happened with regard to the Foreign Ministers who met on the margin of the UN General Assembly. Other ministerial groups were set up, usually on the initiative of the leaders themselves. That was the case for the Environment, Employment, Energy, Education and Development Ministers. Meetings of the Interior and Justice Ministers first took place in 1995 and 1996 and became annual in 2001. To begin with, these ministerial groups followed the instructions of their respective leaders when preparing each summit but they gradually became more independent and began to pursue their own agendas. They have their own operating structures. In practice, only the Finance and Foreign Ministers still directly prepare the annual summit. Finally, at the bottom level of the G8 come the groups of experts working on specific topics. They are usually set up at the initiative of Heads of State and Government and that was the case for the Senior Experts’ Group on Transnational Organized Crime. At the Halifax Summit in 1995, the Heads of State and Government of the P8 (therefore including Russia) decided that such a group should



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be set up. However, at the time of its creation, it had only a temporary mandate, namely to look at existing arrangements for both bilateral and multilateral cooperation, to identify significant gaps and options for improved coordination, and to propose practical action to fill such gaps. Following on from the 1994 Summit in Naples, the main focus of which was the renewal and revitalization of the main international organizations, the group was set up out of a desire to improve cooperation mechanisms at the multilateral level. It was agreed in Halifax that it would submit recommendations to be considered by the member countries (statement issued at the G7 Summit, Halifax, 1995). The following chart shows the structure of the G8 system for dealing with transnational organized crime:

Figure 4.1

How the G8’s system for addressing transnational organized crime operates

The appointed experts thus met for the first time in Ottawa from October 12 to 14, 1995 and for the second time in Montebello (Canada) from November 27 to 29, 1995. A further two meetings chaired by France followed. From the start the group was perceived as a task force and its work was meant to be practical and operational. As a result of that work, as well as the responses to questionnaires that had been sent out to the member country delegations, 40 recommendations on transnational organized crime (Appendix 1), based on the same model used for the FATF recommendations, were drawn up and submitted to the 1996 Summit in Lyon, hence the name “Lyon Group,” where

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they were approved by the Heads of State and Government. The experts stressed the need for their implementation to be monitored and the head of the French delegation therefore announced that their work would continue beyond the Lyon Summit. Since then, the Lyon Group has met at least three times a year. From the numerous references to the Lyon Group that have appeared in official G8 statements since its creation whenever the subject of transnational organized crime has been raised, it would appear that these experts have played a significant part in the drafting of so-called “G8” norms. So how should their role be understood? As a need for additional expertise or as a strategy for legitimizing the problematic challenges arising, as shown earlier, from the use of the expression “transnational organized crime” at the political level? Common sense suggests that an expert is someone who possesses important knowledge and know-how with regard to a particular profession or discipline, all of which have been acquired as a result of long, or at least attested, experience in that field. Such a person is nevertheless not just a sum of these supposed skills; he or she is also someone who, in the view of a particular body, is qualified to give an opinion about an issue that requires special knowledge. These two features (the person’s intrinsic skills/the recognition of their expert status) give the expert a particular place in decision-making. In this respect, a number of points can be made concerning the experts in the Lyon Group by drawing inspiration from a number of studies conducted on other expert groups, particularly within the European Union. The need for the European Commission to develop and manage community policy areas resulted in the emergence of expertise among both European officials and private actors. In a July 2001 report, the European Commission extolled the virtues of resorting to the use of experts, concluding that it was an essential means of “improving the quality of policy-making and, at the same time, increasing public confidence in European governance” (Robert 2003, 57). Underlying this justification of the use of expertise is the idea that experts possess specific knowledge and are the ideal candidates for the job; in other words, the fact that they are seen as objective means their appointment is legitimate and justified. However, if one accepts that experts are called on in “situations in which it is deemed impossible or inappropriate to deploy a strictly political argument or rationale for ruling on an issue” (Robert 2003, 59), it can also be a means of turning political challenges into technical issues for tactical reasons and implementing a strategy of depolitization and legitimation (Robert 2003, 60–63). In the case of the Lyon Group, the G7’s establishment of the Senior Experts’ Group on Transnational Organized Crime in 1995 can indeed be interpreted as a response to the inability of the Heads of State and Government to take joint action on the ill-defined subject of transnational organized crime. Though G8 discourses (in summit communiqués and declarations by Heads of State and Government and statements by Interior and Justice Ministers from the G8)



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use the label “TOC” and class it as a threat, they make no attempt to explain the challenges it poses. The deployment of terms such as “our experts” and “senior experts” may therefore be beneficial on two counts: it guarantees that the issue will be seriously treated by these experts and, in return, legitimates the actions taken. The assertion that transnational organized crime constituted a threat, put forward by the G8 Heads of State and Government in the early 1990s, seemed to be the only reason for setting up a devolved expert group on this subject. Furthermore, if Murray Edelman’s argument concerning the influence bureaucratic structures have on the construction of enemies is taken up, it can be contended that the establishment of the Lyon Group also ensured that the supposed dangers would be seen as genuine. According to Edelman, to establish governmental agencies to deal with external or internal security is to guarantee that their top officials will see serious threats to security and so preserve a function, a budget, and careers. The point is not that officials invent threats that do not exist, but rather that security threats are usually ambiguous and that organizational functioning influences interpretations. (Edelman 1988, 85)

The Deployment of the Lyon Group’s Expertise within the G8 System The very act of resorting to expertise of a technical nature or presenting it as such must therefore be interpreted as justifying its use. In fact, official G8 discourses make that abundantly clear. Official statements by the Heads of State and Government show that the designation of experts went hand in hand with the G8’s adoption of transnational organized crime as an issue and the practices that have flowed from it. The 1997 statement issued by the Denver Summit, which followed the initial Lyon Group meetings, thus makes constant reference in the section entitled “transnational organized crime” to the 40 recommendations for combating transnational organized crime but without mentioning the Lyon Group by name. While the process by which the work of the Lyon Group is disseminated through the G8 system will be clarified later, it is notable that this communiqué already suggests that the work of the experts had already been reappropriated by the G8 at the highest level though their role remained extremely discreet and confidential. This reappropriation can be seen in all the official end-of-summit communiqués which address the topic of transnational organized crime. The Lyon Group was explicitly mentioned for the first time in the section of the 1998 Birmingham Summit statement devoted to drugs and transnational organized crime: We welcome the steps undertaken by the G8 Lyon Group to implement its 40 Recommendations on transnational organised crime and the proposals

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G8 against Transnational Organized Crime G8 Justice and Interior Ministers announced at their meeting in Washington last December. […] We endorse the Lyon Group’s principles and action plan to combat illegal manufacturing and trafficking of firearms. […] We urge the Lyon Group to intensify its on-going work and ask our Ministers to report back to our next Summit on progress on the action plan on high tech crime, the steps taken against money laundering and the joint action on trafficking in human beings. (Birmingham Summit Communiqué 1998)

Allusions to the work of the Lyon Group, though without mentioning it by name, are also evident for those who have detailed knowledge of it. For example, the communiqué reappropriates “the ten principles and ten point action plan agreed by our Ministers on high tech crime” which were first drawn up by the Lyon Group. These 10 principles centered on the establishment of an international list of contact points within the administrative services concerned who could be called up seven days a week 24 hours a day. They are listed in the communiqué issued by the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers in Washington in 1997. The same applies in the case of references to the measures drafted by the Lyon Group to “facilitate asset confiscation from convicted criminals” as well as in the case of the “multidisciplinary and comprehensive strategy, including principles and an action plan for future cooperation amongst ourselves and with third countries, including countries of origin, transit and destination” concerning the trafficking of human beings including illegal immigration, a strategy which had been proposed by the Lyon Group. References to the Lyon Group in the communiqués of Heads of State and Government tended to be explicit until the Genoa Summit in 2001. In the communiqué issued by the Okinawa Summit in 2000, the G8 took the opportunity to say the following: “We appreciate the work undertaken by the Lyon Group in the fight against TOC, and request them to report back to our next meeting.” This assimilation of the work of the Lyon Group is all the more blatant in the communiqués issued by the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers since 1997. In fact, the Lyon Group works directly with the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers who met for the first time in Washington in December 1997. Since then, they have met in London in December 1998, Moscow in 1999, Milan in February 2001, Mont Tremblant (Canada) in May 2002, Paris in May 2003, Washington in May 2004 and Sheffield (UK) in June 2005. Official statements or communiqués were only issued at the meetings held in London, Moscow, Milan, Mont Tremblant and Washington. Often very short (two or three pages) by comparison with the statements issued by Heads of State and Government, they contain numerous explicit and implicit references to the Lyon Group. They are formulated in such a way that they encourage or justify the work of the experts. They encourage them to carry on their efforts in certain specific areas, in particular high tech crime (in Moscow in 1999 and Milan in 2001) and trafficking in human beings (Moscow in 1999). They justify them insofar as the results of the work of the Lyon Group have been reappropriated by the



The Creation of Expertise on Transnational Organized Crime

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ministers (this is the case for the 10 principles and 10-point action plan on high-tech crime and the principles and action plan on trafficking in human beings). All this shows that the work and activities of the Lyon Group have been well integrated into the G8 system. Since its creation in 1995, the Lyon Group has thus served as a constant reference point for the Heads of State and Government as well as for the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers. This discreet work by the Lyon Group experts has also led to the emergence of an expertise that can be specifically labelled “G8” since it has been taken up at all levels of the G8 system. Whether this support for the work of the Lyon Group is explicit (in that it is openly referred to in statements) or implicit (in that it is taken up but not identified as such), the extent to which the supposedly depoliticized technical skills of the experts help the decision-makers is also clear. Paradoxically, any uncertainty around the expression “transnational organized crime” is mitigated once cooperation is in operation. However, neither the official statements issued at G8 summits nor the ministerial statements say very much about the actors involved in the Lyon Group. The latter are referred to as either “senior experts on transnational organized crime” or “experts from the Lyon Group,” or simply the “Lyon Group.” While the statements make it plain that these experts work together and that their work influences decision-making, they do not reveal the identity of the individuals who make up the Group, who they are or how their expertise has been found and recognized. Should the Lyon Group therefore just be seen as an anonymous, homogenous, fixed group? The Lyon Group Experts While studies into expertise and the actors involved in it have occupied an important place in some disciplines, especially sociology, those concerning specifically international expertise have emanated mainly from the field of international relations and that at a time when the latter was in crisis following the end of the Cold War. In the tradition of the writings of James Rosenau on the idea of a multi-centered world system (Rosenau 1990), some scholars have mentioned these “new actors” in the field of international relations, namely non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social movements, pressure groups and experts. The figure of the expert, in particular, has gradually come to feature in many works concerning the emergence of transnational actors and new forms of world governance, as well as in research carried out into advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998), some of which have particularly stressed the important role played by expertise in the lobbying campaign discourses of certain transnational movements, especially with regard to human rights and environmental issues. However, within the agenda of international relations research, it is mainly Peter Haas, best known within that field for his work on

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epistemic communities, who has sought to develop a formal theory around the notion of international experts and, in particular, their relationship with political decision-making. In the introduction to his article on epistemic communities, Peter Haas begins by pointing out that it has become not only increasingly necessary but also increasingly difficult to coordinate global concerns at international level because of the growing technical uncertainties and complexity of the issues in question (Haas 1992). For Haas, decision-makers have been forced to turn to these “knowledge-based experts” because they themselves lack the necessary technical knowledge to deal with such issues. Such experts, who are grouped in epistemic communities, are thus frequently called on to provide them with the information and support they require to make decisions. Haas defines an epistemic community as “a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain or issue-area” (Haas 1992, 3). Epistemic communities are thus seen as reducing uncertainty within the context of international cooperation. This reading of Haas would seem to confirm what was said to be the raison d’être of the setting up of the Lyon Group, namely the wish to bring together experts on transnational organized crime whose role would be to provide the G8 leaders with the information and recommendations they needed to establish cooperation on the issue between the member countries. The three-step process advanced by Haas to explain the different stages in the coordination of epistemic communities—uncertainty about a thorny issue resulting in the use of experts/collective interpretation of the issue by the experts/institutionalization of the norms proposed by the experts—indeed has some appealing features. However, it fails to mention the legitimizing effect this use of experts has for the political actors. Furthermore, Haas’s analysis of expert and policy networks which, according to him, are characterized by the fact that their members subscribe to the same value systems, which have been set up as normative references, the same causal explanations of the issues they are addressing and the same belief in the validity of their expertise considerably restricts the scope of study and says nothing about the actors who supply such expertise. In addition, when Haas endeavors to refer to sociological and cultural theses, he resolutely disposes of them by confining his consideration to the process by which consensus is built within expert groups and the way in which such consensus is passed on by other actors. The work of Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth has shown the limitations of taking an epistemic community-based approach, stressing that it gives a false picture of homogeneity (Dezalay and Garth 2002). Though actors within an epistemic community may share similarities that foster the emergence of a consensus that can then be taken up by decision-makers, this can be demonstrated much more convincingly than Haas does by examining them from a sociological perspective. By taking as their starting point the actors who are deemed to be “experts,” Dezalay and Garth stress the importance of



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taking their careers, social capital and institutional positioning as a starting point in order to determine how they operate as a group and the symbolic effect they have on political decision-makers. In the case of the G8, it is a question of not only showing the conditions in which consensus emerges among the actors in the Lyon Group but also, by assessing how widespread that consensus is, of determining the weight such expertise carries with the bodies that are above them in the hierarchy. Proceeding in this way lends support to what was proposed earlier, namely the emergence of a so-called G8 expertise in which the role of the Lyon Group, even though it is at the heart of it, is not always visible. Looking at the Lyon Group actors from a sociological perspective thus makes it possible to remedy the impression that it is an anonymous and uniform group. Faces can be given to these “experts’ and social logics and dynamics can be restored to them. The work of Dezalay and Garth on the evolution of political systems in Latin America has been a source of inspiration for the method adopted here. The research strategy they use resolutely adopts a sociological perspective in order to understand why a system of power founded essentially on a Europeanstyle legal culture came to be replaced by a new legitimation model based on economic expertise acquired in the United States (Dezalay and Garth, 2002). Using a sociology inspired by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, which allows questions to be put to the actors (concerning their career paths, their individual trajectories, the resources at their disposal and their social capital), Dezalay and Garth managed to compile a “biography” of a field of professionals. By using this approach and similar research undertaken elsewhere, in particular at EU level (see for instance Challenge European Framework Programme 2004–2009), it has been possible, in this study of the G8 experts, to link the different services and agencies responsible for the management of transnational organized crime at international level together and to show that, regardless of any internal disagreements they may have had, professional solidarity between them has given rise to a common general understanding of what “security” and “insecurity” is and what needs to be done with regard to “insecurity.” It has not been possible to produce an exhaustive biography of all of the participants in the Lyon Group because of the great secrecy that surrounds both the group itself and the experts involved. Nevertheless, by interviewing some of them (under the conditions explained in the introduction), it has been possible to identify some points of convergence and similarity, in particular, their professional skills, their familiarity with international dynamics thus suggesting that they have acquired specific recognition within their national administrations and, lastly, the fact that they occupy many different positions on the international stage. Firstly, as far as similarities are concerned, the Lyon Group actors are without exception officials in their respective national administrations. They mainly come from the Justice, Interior and Foreign Ministries. Within each administration, the positions they occupy are firmly focused on international

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G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

matters, particularly given that the offices to which they belong were conceived for that purpose, examples being the Sous-Direction de la sécurité (ViceDirectorate for Security), at the Quai d’Orsay, the Bureau Crime organisé, corruption et blanchiment (Organized Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering Office), at the French Justice Ministry, the International Crime and Terrorism Division of the Canadian Foreign Ministry and the International Directorate within the British Home Office. As a result of their positions, they have in-depth knowledge of the international conventions developed by bodies such as the UN and the OECD and, in the case of experts from European delegations, the EU, as well as of the negotiating processes they use. In the case of the younger members of the Lyon Group, who may be less hardened to this habitus of diplomacy or less familiar with international negotiating processes, the fact remains that they have a very good command of the English language and many have received solid training in international matters. Current practical experience of speaking English is a particularly important criterion in selecting the actors to be sent to Lyon Group meetings since the working language is exclusively English. According to some of the actors interviewed, it is particularly common in the member countries where English is still not widely spoken, such as Japan, Russia and Italy, for selection to be made on the basis of linguistic skills. The vast majority of those interviewed initially undertook courses with an international focus during their studies, especially political sciences and/or “international relations,” taken in their broadest sense and therefore including training in international law, business and other related subjects. This familiarity with international negotiating processes also means that some experts play many different roles. As pointed out earlier, some of them have participated or participate in meetings on subjects connected with transnational organized crime that are organized by bodies other than the Lyon Group, particularly under the auspices of the OECD, EU, UN and the Organization of American States (OAS). So a significant number of the actors in the Lyon Group go from one international body to another. This is true in particular for the police experts in the group who are members of the European administrations and so meet together in EU working groups, especially the Multidisciplinary Group on Organized Crime. The experts in the Lyon Group are thus mobile and move from one forum to another. This mobility is undoubtedly one of the main reasons why the norms developed within the G8, which are studied later in this study, have spread right across the international stage. The international experience or training which all these actors have is not necessarily accompanied by specialist knowledge of subjects related to organized crime. While some claimed to have such knowledge, others admitted that it was more the fact that they had obtained a post within a particular administration that had gained them entry to the Lyon Group. Of the 20 people interviewed, 11 said they were familiar with issues related to organized



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crime. That in-depth knowledge had been acquired through professional experience, particularly within international delegations. Of the nine who said they were not very familiar with such issues, six had only recently started their professional careers (their length of service ranging from one to three years) and three had just attained posts in specialist offices which gave them a de facto connection to the issues in question. That being the case, how did they perceive the status of “expert” that had been conferred on them as a result of their involvement in the Lyon Group? For those who said they were familiar with issues related to organized crime, it seemed natural and justified. All thus pointed to their previous experience as well as their length of service in the domain. As far as the nine others were concerned, there were two different responses. Some said that, despite their lack of experience, they were largely trained on the job and had benefited from the knowledge of former Lyon Group experts. Others admitted that they had become involved in the Lyon Group somewhat by accident, the only reason for their “expert” status being that they held a particular post which automatically ensured them a place in meetings. It was extremely difficult to obtain information about how these experts are recruited at national level. According to the interviews, there were three criteria for selecting those sent to the Lyon Group: current practical experience of speaking English, in some cases experience of issues related to organized crime, or simply the fact that the person in question held a particular post in a specialist office (regardless of whether they had the necessary skills or experience). According to the information obtained, the experts were usually selected by the Foreign Ministries of the member countries. However, selection remained open in the sense that nothing was directly imposed by the ministry. Some colleagues could therefore coopt each other or give advice to other officials. In any event, the procedure is far from transparent, even for the actors themselves, and hard to generalize for all eight member countries. Even though it is difficult to generalize for all the actors in the Lyon Group, the interviews conducted show that there is nevertheless a certain homogeneity among them. Their experience of international matters, acquired through training and amplified and reinforced through attendance at international meetings, has set them apart from the national structures to which they belong. The Lyon Group experts can be likened to a new “international elite” (Dezalay 1993). This “elite” is set apart because it is able to hedge its bets: it can invest effort at the international level in order to boost its position in the national power arena while at the same time making use of its national fame to get itself heard on the international stage (Dezalay 2004). If the actors interviewed are to be believed, this separate world that the experts in the Lyon Group supposedly inhabit was borne out in the case of the Russian, Italian and Japanese delegations, few of whom could claim to have had international experience, thus putting them in a different league within their national structures. This awareness of belonging to a privileged group is further strengthened by the

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G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

personal prestige that being part of the Lyon Group gives these actors. Seen by some as a “select group” (interview, February 2006, Paris) in which they are able to “satisfy their thirst for exchanging knowledge” (interview, February 2006, Paris) through the constant informal and confidential sharing of good practice and information, the Lyon Group is apparently considered to be a prestigious meeting place. As one of the interviewees remarked, those who are part of the Lyon Group are “those who have the most experience and make it available” to their professional counterparts (interview, March 2006, London). Being a member is a badge of excellence and can also be seen as facilitating promotion to the international stage and/or recognition at domestic level. The high degree of social capital enjoyed by the Lyon Group actors can thus be perceived at the collective level. The reciprocal and mutual recognition of their status as experts in fact stems from the many different interactions to which the Lyon Group gives rise. The gradual routinization of the meetings of the Lyon Group has considerably fostered a sense of belonging to a special group which in turn fosters the sharing of information and experience, thus enabling collective mobilization to emerge within the G8. The Lyon Group actors would thus appear to share a social capital which constitutes a valuable symbolic resource and benefits both the collective work of these actors from many different backgrounds and the deployment of that work in national and international arenas.

Chapter 5

The Structure and Organization of the Lyon Group

This chapter will seek to shed light on the structure and modus operandi of the Lyon Group and how its meetings are organized. It will also try to understand how the work of its experts is disseminated and fed back into the most visible G8 structures, namely the meetings of the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers and the summits of Heads of State and Government. Chronology and Structure The first two meetings of the Lyon Group were held in the autumn of 1995, during Canada’s presidency of the G7, following a decision taken at the Halifax Summit by the Heads of State and Government of the P8 to set up a group of experts on transnational organized crime. Since then, the experts have continued to meet regularly. Since the G8 presidency changes every year, running from January to December, meetings of the Lyon Group are organized triannually by whichever country currently holds the presidency. They are held either in the capital of one of the member states or in a more secluded venue, as Table 5.1, compiled using the information obtained from the documentation and the interviews, testifies. As only partial information was available for 2001–2005, the table is incomplete. Nevertheless, it was possible to confirm through the interviews that the pattern of meetings for that period was the same as in the past, in other words they were held three times a year, with each meeting lasting on average two consecutive days. These triannual meetings are also accompanied by regular contact between the actors involved in the group. All of those interviewed stressed the importance of telephone and email communication. Most also stressed the pleasant atmosphere at meetings and the opportunities the latter provide for dialogue and to exchange knowledge and know-how. The fact that the group is organized into subgroups further facilitates this interaction. In a letter dated August 24, 1995 to the sherpas of the G8 Heads of State and Government, the head of the Canadian delegation, expressed the wish that the work of the expert group should “revolve around the deliberations of a wide range of expert practitioners.” The Lyon Group should thus include “representatives of agencies directly involved in policing, customs and

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Table 5.1

G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

Chronological list of known dates and places of Lyon Group meetings (1995–2005)

Year

Date and place of known Lyon Group meetings

G8 Presidency

1995

12–14 October, Ottawa 27–29 November, Montebello

Canada

1996

7–9 February, Paris 10–12 April, Paris 14–16 October, Lyon

France

1997

21–23 January, Washington 16–18 April, Washington 26–29 October, Boston

United States

1998

20–21 January, London 3–4 March, London 2–4 November, London

United Kingdom

1999

15–17 March, Konigswinter 13–15 June, Cologne 15–17 November, Berlin

Germany

2000

Not known 22–24 May, Kyoto 14–16 November, Hiroshima

Japan

2001

Not known Not known Not known (September), Rome

Italy

2002

22–23 January, Ottawa Not known Not known

Canada

2003

Paris (February) Paris (April) Paris, not known

France

2004

Not known 13–15 April, Washington Not known

United States

2005

Not known Not known 7–11 November, London

United Kingdom

immigration enforcement, legal experts, and foreign policy specialists.” Right from the start, the Canadian Presidency envisaged that the experts would meet in separate subgroups to discuss police and customs issues, immigration, and judicial matters. At the two 1995 meetings, which brought together some of the future experts for the first time, two initial subgroups were thus set up: the first, chaired by the head of the Italian delegation, dealt with legal and institutional matters, and the second, chaired by the head of the British delegation, was responsible for looking at law enforcement agencies. In 1996,



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The Structure and Organization of the Lyon Group

two other subgroups were set up under the French presidency, one on migration and the other on high-tech crime. While not possible to determine exactly how many actors attended these subgroups, from the interviews conducted it would appear that on average there were about two or three delegates per country in each subgroup. Cautious estimates would therefore seem to suggest that there were generally about 30 people in each subgroup. Since being set up, these four subgroups have formed the core of the Lyon Group and have changed very little over time, as Table 5.2 shows. Table 5.2

List of Lyon Group subgroups (1995–2005)

Name of subgroup

Year set up

Year closed

Firearms

1996

2001

Migration

1996

…

High-Tech Crime

1995

…

Judicial Cooperation

1995

…

Law Enforcement

1995

…

Intelligence Practitioners

2002

…

Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI)

2004

…

The table also lists the Firearms Subgroup which was set up in 1996 and remained active until 2001 when it was abolished following the adoption of one of the three additional protocols to the United Nations Palermo Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The Intelligence Practitioners and SAFTI Subgroups were set up post-September 11, 2001 and will be examined in the penultimate chapter. The Judicial Cooperation Subgroup has not changed since 1995. It is mainly made up of practitioners from the Justice Ministries of the G8 member countries. Between 1995 and 2005, the Law Enforcement Subgroup underwent some changes. From its birth in 1995, it was known as the “Law Enforcement Project” and operated in a particular way, namely by means of specific projects that were collectively managed by Lyon Group experts from specialist services such as the police or customs. In 2000 this approach was abandoned in favor of a more global strategy and it became known simply as the Law Enforcement Subgroup. The subgroup on immigration matters has also undergone several changes since 1996: originally called the “Alien Smuggling Subgroup,” its name was changed in 1997 to the “Alien Smuggling and Document Fraud Subgroup,” then again in 1998 to the “Illegal Immigration and People Smuggling Subgroup” before becoming the “Migration Subgroup,” the name

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it is still known by today. The High-Tech Crime Subgroup, on the other hand, has not substantially changed since being set up in 1996. According to internal documents from the Lyon Group, the group’s plenary sessions, which are attended by all those involved, regularly alternate with the subgroup sessions (Agenda: Lyon Group Meeting and Lyon Group Plenary Meeting Agenda 1997, unpublished document). The plenary sessions also provide an opportunity for the work of the subgroups to be made known to the group as a whole, in the form of reports or collective assessments. According to the information obtained from the interviews, this system of alternating the different meetings is still used today. Even though, according to most of the actors interviewed, the subgroups enjoy a great deal of autonomy, “information constantly circulates” (interview, February 2006, Paris) during Lyon Group meetings. There is therefore a certain degree of decompartmentalization evident in the different subgroups that make up the Lyon Group. Furthermore, while the practitioners involved in subgroups are usually from the same or a similar profession, some of them can circulate from one subgroup to another if it is deemed necessary. This practice is mentioned in several of the internal documents. For example, the High-Tech Crime Subgroup asked the Judicial Cooperation Subgroup for assistance on matters related to extradition and mutual legal assistance in connection with the investigation and prosecution of people involved in cybercrime. The subgroups are therefore flexible structures in which the establishment of channels of communication is made possible and encouraged. A Framework that Fosters Discussion and Dialogue The Lyon Group’s framework is particularly flexible, making it easy for the participants to meet together. Dialogue, as well as disagreement, are therefore both types of interplay that strengthen the relationship between them. In the opinion of the actors interviewed, the Lyon Group enables them to both share their experiences and pool best practices. This was summed up by one of them as follows (interview, London, March 2006): It should not be forgotten that the Lyon Group is not a negotiating forum. It is not a forum in which texts are drafted but a coordinating forum for several states which play an influential role in international negotiations. At the same time it is a think tank.

According to most of the interviewees, the potential for disagreement is thus immediately reduced, giving way instead to a reciprocal learning process and an environment of mutual respect that are fostered by a sense of belonging to a special group of countries. That is what largely emerged from the interviews. As a “select forum,” the Lyon Group thus reportedly allows “a powerful



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dynamic between countries that have a real capacity to influence” to be created (interview, Ottawa, April 2005). It is all the more possible to achieve consensus within it because of the adoption of “a very pragmatic and operational approach which allows specific issues to be clarified” (interview, London, March 2006) and “analyses to be compared” (interview, Paris, February 2006), from which very wide-ranging principles and recommendations can emerge. The Lyon Group’s function is thus above all to “clear the ground before embarking on standard-setting” (interview, Ottawa, April 2005). The specific way in which it operates (it is informal and confidential and does not set out to establish legally-binding texts) gives the actors plenty of scope for initiative as well as great freedom of action. The activities of the subgroups are ample proof of this. Using the internal Lyon Group documents and the interviews, it has in fact been possible to chart the main activities of each of the subgroups that make up the Lyon Group and as a result to offer some suggestions about why the experts may have chosen to work together within the type of selective international cooperation framework that the G8 provides. This has been done mainly by examining the projects undertaken by the Law Enforcement Subgroup. In addition to the four main subgroups identified above, several ad hoc groups have emerged as a result of the project-based approach adopted by the Law Enforcement Subgroup. The raison d’être of these ad hoc groups was to encourage cooperation within the G8 administrations on specific projects (Project-Based Action against Transnational Organized Crime: Practical Guidance 1996, unpublished document). Such projects could take different forms, for example, seeking the arrest of a criminal, monitoring an investigation or implementing a more strategic initiative to evaluate a specific threat. These projects were proposed by the delegations of the G8 member countries, thus implying that they have been discussed in advance at national level. Each project was then submitted to the G8 partners at a meeting of the Law Enforcement Subgroup which decided by consensus whether or not to adopt it. The fact that a project had been adopted by consensus did not mean that all partners had to be involved in it. If they were not interested, they could opt out but not prevent the project in question from going ahead. At each meeting of the Law Enforcement Subgroup, there was an opportunity to assess the project and decide whether it should continue or end. Ten projects of this kind were undertaken between 1996 and 2001. As Table 5.3 shows, they covered a very broad range of subjects. Some of these projects came to nothing or were abandoned. That was the case for the Japanese delegation’s proposal concerning joint work on the trafficking of human beings of Asian origin and the underground banking system, as well as for proposals by the US delegation concerning Iraqi immigration, intellectual property rights, and money laundering connected with non-drugrelated crime. Although the internal documents do not specify exactly why such projects were abandoned or rejected by the group as a whole, some

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Table 5.3

G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

List of ad hoc groups set up by the Lyon Group (1995–2001)

Name

Year set up Year dissolved

Organized Credit Card Crime

1997

1999

Caribbean Project

1997

1998

Illegal entry and smuggling of Iraqi Nationals

1997

1998

Trafficking in stolen vehicles

1997

1998

Colombian Organized Crime

1997

1998

Russian and East-European Organized Crime

1997

1999

West-African Organized Crime

1997

1998

Pedophile Project

1997

1998

Corruption

1996

?

UN Convention

1998

2000

meeting reports provide some clues. The US project on unlawful commercial financial transactions was said to have prompted little interest. The project on intellectual property rights was rejected because the subject was deemed to be already sufficiently covered by the European Commission, INTERPOL and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The project on Iraqi immigration was turned down because, in the opinion of the experts, not all the G8 countries saw it as equally important. Other projects, such as one on the trafficking of stolen vehicles, led to bilateral cooperation between Japan and Russia and collaboration with INTERPOL before being abandoned the following year. Nothing more is said in the documents. On the other hand, other projects have prompted keen interest and been taken up collectively. That was the case for the projects on organized crime in West Africa, the Caribbean, Colombia and Eastern Europe, as well as those on credit card fraud and pedophile networks. Despite the great secrecy that seems to surround these projects (no specific details of how they were run are given in the documents), some of their conclusions have been reproduced in internal documents and show that cooperation between the actors involved in the Lyon Group was close. The first of them concerns organized crime in West Africa. Between the end of 1996 and the end of 1998, a collective assessment of the impact of West African organized crime, as well as a study of preventive measures and over a dozen best practices, were carried out. During 1998 the experts focused in particular on a Nigerian organization which had made international fraud one of its specialities, especially through the use of fraudulent letters. The internal document on this issue indicates that it was the Italian delegation which had been mainly affected by this phenomenon and had therefore brought the matter up with their partners in the Lyon Group. The project on organized crime in West Africa led to the seizure of contraband goods as well as the dissemination of the best practices drawn up by the Lyon Group. It was



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abandoned at the end of 1998, according to the internal documents because of dwindling interest among the actors in the subgroup. The Caribbean project initiated by the German delegation also seems to have involved the carrying out of joint investigations by the G8 countries, especially in US airports, specifically targeting people involved in the trafficking of drugs to Europe. However, as the internal documents indicate, the results of this project were disappointing, leading to just eight arrests and no drug seizures. The Colombia project seems to have been more an opportunity to make a collective assessment of the level of “threat,” as testified by a confidential internal document prepared by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), but whether it resulted in any specific action is not known. The German initiative on credit card fraud seems to have been more successful. It prompted the experts to look at establishing an international definition of what constitutes a “credit card” as well as ways of tracing their provenance. A plan of action was drawn up in close collaboration with INTERPOL. Similar collaboration took place with regard to the project on organized crime in Eastern Europe and Russia, with the work done by the experts leading to the establishment of the Millennium project by INTERPOL and in particular the creation of an international database on that region. The project on pedophilia, which specifically focused on sexual tourism, was also seen as successful in the documents. One internal document made special mention of Operation Osprey, which had been initiated by the British delegation in 1998. This sought to facilitate cooperation in order to target high-risk passengers, especially on flights to or from Thailand, identify “highrisk areas” in each of the G8 countries and track down pedophiles on the Internet. According to one of the internal documents, this led to the arrest of pedophiles, especially in United Kingdom and Canada. A list of best practices was also drawn up and sent to the customs services of the European Union and INTERPOL. The operation therefore encouraged close collaboration between the G8, INTERPOL and EUROPOL. These specific projects clearly show that the actors involved in the Lyon Group are able to be reactive. This is all the more possible because of the group’s extremely flexible format. All of the projects, whether they were completed, abandoned or simply rejected, show that there is a definite will to make use of the platform provided by the Lyon Group and to mobilize the resources available to it, including both its contacts and its financial and operational capabilities. While, according to some of the interviewees, stumbling blocks are sometimes inevitable in interactions between the Lyon Group actors, the group’s work appears to exhibit a high level of consistency and cohesion that ensure the group’s raison d’être, namely to be above all a “think tank” in which possible areas of cooperation can be tested and those deemed to be too problematic ruled out. Despite the discreet remarks of the experts interviewed, differences of opinion have indisputably arisen during subgroup

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meetings, though usually mainly because of the different practices and laws in effect in each G8 member country. Reference was made to differences over the traceability of communications and arguments about whether public officials should be included when considering the topic of corruption. This finding nevertheless makes it possible to reach some conclusions with regard to the interplay that exists between the members of this group: first of all, it is extremely flexible, thereby allowing a wide range of different subjects to be addressed and the network of professional contacts to constantly expand. This communication and these exchanges foster the emergence of a collective expertise which is all the more influential in that there is little competition or head-on conflict between the experts. That being the case, have the necessary conditions been met to be able to call the work undertaken in the Lyon Group “G8 work?” Evidence of the emergence of collective mobilization within the G8 system can be found in two particular aspects of that work, namely, the fact that the experts contribute on an equal footing, thus making it possible to say that the Lyon Group is relatively united as a group, and the way in which the work of the Lyon Group is disseminated and internally incorporated into the broader workings of the G8 structure. The format of Lyon Group meetings, divided as has already been seen into subgroups, shows first of all that tasks and responsibilities are equally divided among the delegations of the member countries. Though it is definitely the rotating annual presidency of the G8 that organizes and hosts the meetings of the Lyon Group, there is no information available about how the chairmanship of the subgroups is decided. However, reading between the lines of the information obtained, it appears that the chairmanship of the four main subgroups has changed very little since 1996. Throughout that period, the Law Enforcement Subgroup has been chaired by UK, the Migration Subgroup by Canada and the High-Tech Crime Subgroup by the United States. As for the Judicial Cooperation Subgroup, documents from 19961999 show that Italy held the chairmanship during that period. After that, documents from 2002–2004 show that the chairmanship passed to France. The other delegations have not been left out: Japan chaired the Firearms Subgroup throughout its existence and France chaired the ad hoc group on the United Nations Convention until 2000. However, the fact that a delegation may have chaired a subgroup does not necessarily reflect the different initiatives it may have launched within those subgroups. The specific projects undertaken by the Law Enforcement Subgroup, for example, show that significant contributions were made by the German delegation (which initiated and headed the project on credit card fraud as well as the one on the Caribbean), the British delegation (which initiated and headed the projects on West African organized crime, pedophilia and Colombia) and the Japanese delegation (in the case of the project on the trafficking in stolen vehicles). The work was similarly balanced out within the other subgroups: for example, France led the work on false documents (at least between 1996



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and 1999) and Germany designed the G8’s strategy to combat the trafficking of human beings and illegal immigration in the Migration Subgroup chaired by Canada. Canada also drew up the draft protocol to the United Nations Convention against the trafficking of firearms in the subgroup of the same name chaired by Japan. However, one delegation seems to have a role of its very own in the Lyon Group, namely the Russian one. According to some documents, it has chaired an ad hoc subgroup on corruption ever since 1996. However, none of the documents covering the period from 1997 to 2005 mention it. Furthermore, it was only as a result of the interviews that the Russian delegation’s involvement in the Lyon Group was confirmed. In particular, one interviewee said that Russia had a very important role to play in the Lyon Group and that it was considered to be a key partner (interview, April 2003, Ottawa). While the Russians were said to be “very reserved” (interview, February 2006, Paris) during Lyon Group meetings, reference was also made to their “good will” (interview, February 2006, Paris) as well as their gradual volunteerism, especially their willingness to organize the meeting of G8 Interior and Justice Ministers in Moscow in 1999 and their diligence in organizing the Lyon Group meetings during 2006 when Russia held the G8 presidency for the first time. In the opinion of all the interviewees, although it took time for the Russian delegation to feel at ease in the Lyon Group, it eventually became a fullycommitted partner. Overall the interviews confirmed that there has been a certain degree of balance between the different delegations in the Lyon Group. Although some of the actors interviewed said that the extent to which each delegation contributed also depended on the personalities of the officials who were sent to it, they all agreed that the Lyon Group allows genuine discussion to take place between partners who recognize each other as such. It was also, however, repeatedly pointed out that the most active delegations were indisputably the French, British, American and Canadian ones, with leadership tending to be assumed by the “Anglo-Saxons,” especially the British and, even more so, the Americans, particularly since the events of September 11, 2001. However, according to some of the interviewees, that state of affairs was tempered by the “good atmosphere” (interview, February 2006, Paris) at Lyon Group meetings during which views were certainly exchanged forcefully but “without any kind of pressure” (interview, February 2006, Brussels). The impression conveyed by these remarks is one of a group of experts participating on an equal footing, thus fostering collective work and mutual recognition, and a sense of solidarity that is undoubtedly heightened by the shared feeling of being part of a special group, as summed up, somewhat smugly, by this British actor: “The G8 Lyon Group gathers top class professional experts” (interview, March 2006, London). Given these features, the mobilization of the Lyon Group’s actors is guaranteed. Yet how is this mobilization fed back into the G8 as a whole? The issue of transnational

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organized crime appears to be addressed at three different levels within the G8 system: namely, by the Lyon Group experts, the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers, and the G8 Heads of State and Government at summits. Thanks to the interviews conducted, it has been possible to refine this model of how the activities of the Lyon Group are reported back to the different levels of the G8. Feeding Back and Disseminating the Work of the Experts Far from acting in an isolated manner, the Lyon Group continually makes its activities known to its hierarchical superiors. A vast amount of preparatory work takes place first of all upstream inside each of the administrations of the member countries and then downstream in the meetings of ministers and Heads of State and Government. Except for UK, it is departments within the Foreign Ministries of the seven other countries, sometimes specialist ones, which supervise the Lyon Group delegations, such as, for example, the Office of the Deputy Director of Security at the Quai d’Orsay and the International Crime and Terrorism Division at the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the case of UK, it is the Home Office which plays this role, through its International Directorate. Prior to the meetings of the Lyon Group, these offices coordinate approaches at national level in consultation with the other ministries concerned, especially and mainly the Justice and Interior Ministries, via their diplomatic advisers. Meetings are therefore held in each member country to give instructions to the designated experts prior to each Lyon Group meeting. While diplomats from Foreign Affairs are involved in the preparation of Lyon Group meetings, their role is nevertheless limited during the meetings themselves. They are, however, responsible for disseminating the work of the group after each meeting, thus participating in the downstream process. It is in fact up to the diplomats to send a report of each Lyon Group meeting to the sous-sherpas who in turn forward them to the sherpas responsible for informing the Heads of State and Government of their contents. At the same time, the experts prepare notes for their own minister after each meeting and these are used when preparing the ministerial meetings, especially those of the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers. As the activities of the Lyon Group have become more and more institutionalized, it has become increasingly important for them to be taken into account when preparing such ministerial meetings. However, it has been difficult to assess their impact on G8 Summits. The internal documentation from the Lyon Group shows that there is a constant concern for space to be given to its work in the statements issued at the end of summits. As a result, proposals on what should be included in such statements are found in the reports of some subgroups. At the Lyon Group meeting in Washington in April 1997, the reports from the Firearms and High-Tech Crime Subgroups thus recommended that the Heads of State



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and Government should reserve a part of their statement for the issues they covered. The Firearms Subgroup proposed the following wording: We recognize that the illicit traffic in firearms can pose a very serious threat to public safety. We therefore welcome the recent trend that the significance of the issue is being more widely recognized in the international community as illustrated by the development in the United Nations. We endorse the specific recommendations developed by the Lyon Group.

And the following wording was proposed by the Hi-Tech Crime Subgroup: “We recognize the threat of crimes including the use or misuse of computers and telecommunication systems to public safety. […] We endorse the work of the Lyon Group combating high-tech and computer-related crime, and ask them to continue their efforts in this important area.” The statement issued at the Denver Summit in June 1997 is particularly significant in this regard: while not reproducing the exact wording of the proposals made by these two subgroups, it nevertheless replicated their content, though without naming the subgroups in question or even the Lyon Group. Instead, the main proposals put forward by the two subgroups were taken up but prefaced by the personal pronoun “we,” as the following extract shows: Together, we have strengthened cooperation bilaterally, multilaterally, and with other nations and groups […] to prevent illegal trafficking in firearms. […] We will combat illegal firearms trafficking, by considering a new international instrument. We will seek to adopt standard systems for firearms identification and a stronger international regime for import and export licensing of firearms. […] In the coming year we will focus on two areas of critical concern: first, the investigation, prosecution, and punishment of high-tech criminals, such as those tampering with computer and telecommunications technology, across national borders; second, a system to provide all governments the technical and legal capabilities to respond to high-tech crimes, regardless of where the criminals may be located. (Denver Summit Communiqué 1997)

With very few exceptions, this habit of concealing the Lyon Group is found in all communiqués issued by the Heads of State and Government who, if they mention the Group or its “experts” at all, do so in general and extremely vague terms, as pointed out earlier. And while the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers are less evasive in their references, their statements nevertheless considerably underplay the Lyon Group’s influence on their own work, often taking up a good many of the recommendations and best practices proposed by the experts without publicly identifying them as the authors.

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In fact, since meetings of the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers first began in 1997, they have been the preferred channel for disseminating the activities of the Lyon Group and thereby giving it the chance to have its role recognized. While this recognition usually tends to be rather understated, it is nevertheless much clearer than that given at the summits where many different subjects are addressed and the importance of the Lyon Group appears to be played down. This was evident right from the first joint declaration that emerged from the meeting of the ministers concerned in December 1997 in Washington (Declaration issued by the G7 Justice and Interior Ministers, Washington, 1997). It dealt with all the activities of the Lyon Group subgroups but without ever mentioning the latter other than as “experts.” The extract concerning high-tech crime is particularly illuminating because it reproduces almost word for word the aforementioned proposals which the High-Tech Crime Subgroup had submitted for inclusion in the Denver Summit communiqué. The ministers also appropriated the action plan drawn up by the experts from that subgroup without mentioning its origin. The declaration also takes up, again without mentioning its provenance, the work of the Judicial Cooperation Subgroup on extradition as well as that of the Firearms and Migration Subgroups on international firearms trafficking and human trafficking respectively: “We will continue to work together to combat international firearms trafficking and other forms of cross-border crime and smuggling.” Lastly, the Law Enforcement Subgroup is implicitly encouraged to continue with its work: “We welcome the continued efforts of our experts to develop cooperative strategies and policies to combat major transnational criminal organizations and to implement joint operation projects to target such organizations and their criminal activities.” The communiqué issued following the ministerial meeting in Moscow in October 1999 is far less guarded in its references to the Lyon Group. The extracts devoted to high-tech crime explicitly mention the subgroup in question and acknowledge that the action plan to combat trafficking in human beings, which was endorsed at the meeting, was prepared by the Lyon Group. However, it fails to mention the role of the Judicial Cooperation Subgroup in drafting the principles and recommendations on the seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime, which were also endorsed by the ministers. The communiqué issued following the ministerial meeting in Milan in February 2001 reverted to mentioning the Lyon Group only implicitly, encouraging it in rather vague terms to carry on its work on judicial cooperation, law enforcement cooperation and high-tech crime. While the joint ministerial statements alternate between openly referring to the activities of the Lyon Group and doing so only indirectly, for those who are in a position to know and recognize those activities they nevertheless clearly show that the work of the experts is taken up systematically. The fact that the work and activities of the Lyon Group are only mentioned very discreetly in the statements issued at summits and ministerial meetings



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should not therefore be misunderstood since it generally goes hand in hand with an institutional labelling of that work and those activities that makes them immensely important. Even though this expertise is scarcely mentioned, it nevertheless results in the emergence onto the international stage of norms that bear the label “G8.” The fact that it is made use of at G8 meetings at the highest level, from which public statements then emerge, is proof that the advice provided by the Lyon Group experts is constantly endorsed by their superiors. Their work is thus given the “G8” seal of approval, thereby conferring on them a high level of collective recognition. So, if one accepts that “all analyses of situations of expertise should take account of two partners, the expert as well as his/her sponsor, and endeavor to discern the terms of the contract” (Restier-Melleray 1990, 551), then it has to be admitted that in this case there is definitely a relationship of partnership and that the terms of the contract respect the word of the expert. In this regard the official statements are politically very clever. By indicating from time to time that the experts exist and that they are being consulted, they give them enough space to show that the issues in question are being treated with seriousness and objectivity. On the other hand, their identity and the way their work is done remain hidden so that a single “G8” position can be put forward to the world. Considering the G8 expertise from the perspective of its sociology thus provides confirmation of the importance of the Lyon Group experts in the emergence and production of norms within the G8. Now, this “G8” position is not at all insignificant: bringing together some of the most powerful countries on the planet, the influence this common position exerts on world affairs is unparalleled. The figure of the expert thus assumes a special dimension because it does not simply imply a “service relationship:” experts are not just providers commissioned to supply technical information; they are also able to devise norms. It is from this viewpoint that the place of the G8 and its experts in the development of international systems to combat transnational organized crime needs to be assessed.

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Chapter 6

Cooperation as the Imperative for Mobilizing against Transnational Organized Crime

Since the 1990s the emergence of the new threat allegedly posed by transnational organized crime has led to numerous discourses on the emergence of cooperation around the issue at international level. As criminal networks operating on a global scale were considered to present a growing challenge to the security of the international community as a whole, international mobilization in the areas of investigation and prosecution has focused mainly on facilitating and harmonizing police and judicial practices. But, in the case of the G8, is this unanimity around the cooperation imperative real? Does this united front in the face of a common enemy conceal the fact that the G8 experts do not all share the same views? The intention of this chapter is to examine the frame of reference within which the Lyon Group actors operate in order to identify the similarities and differences between them and discover how they reach consensus. The Lyon Group: A Common Frame of Reference on Transnational Organized Crime? It is firstly by judging them against the yardstick of the extent to which views among the Lyon Group actors about the alleged threat posed by transnational organized crime concur that the premises underlying any agreement on how to mobilize against it should be understood. While it has been possible to glean certain common views about the type of “threat” posed by transnational organized crime from the official statements issued at G8 Summits, the Lyon Group’s working documents provide very little information about how the experts perceive that threat. By cross-referencing them, however, it is nevertheless possible to identify some points that help to determine the perceptions on which the political discourses adopted at the level of the G8 Heads of State and Government have been based. Internal Lyon Group documents give very little space to describing the threat as such. They do, however, contain statements which show that the experts take a common approach to the morphology of the threat and the strategic analysis required to counter it. For example, the internal document

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concerning preparation of the G8 Summit in Birmingham in 1998 states the following in its preamble: Criminals’ ability to cross borders, move money and traffic stolen or illegal goods poses a central challenge to securing the benefits of global integration. It threatens the safety and property of our citizens, the integrity of our institutions, and the stability and security of young democracies. Much as our nations have helped build an integrated and prosperous world system, we also have led in addressing this critical challenge.

In the subsequent section on the “problem” posed by transnational organized crime, it states that though global integration has led to unprecedented prosperity, it has been accompanied by “new threats” from organized criminal groups: These same powerful forces, however, also have opened our nations to new international threats from organized crime groups. The global free market offers vast opportunities to criminals, just as it does to legal commercial enterprises. Modem communications and information technologies, when used by criminals, can outpace the cooperation of even the most advanced law enforcement forces. Criminal wealth can be transmitted electronically and laundered instantaneously. In addition, free trade zones and common markets offer opportunities for well-organized groups to ship contraband, especially through countries with inadequate border controls or easilycorrupted officials. Criminals can dodge nations’ jurisdictional limits and conflicting national laws to find safe havens and escape justice. (The G8 and Transnational Organized Crime Priorities for Birmingham 1998, unpublished document)

According to the experts, these criminal groups take advantage of modern means of communication in order to forge alliances, launder money electronically and cross borders that have become increasingly porous. The rhetoric adopted is in this sense consistent with the political statements emanating from summits and uses the same explanatory processes in order to determine the threat posed by transnational organized crime, namely that in an increasingly open world, new opportunities, in terms of action as well as methods and means, abound for criminal groups. The internal Lyon Group document concerning preparation of the Birmingham Summit is very useful for understanding how a common frame of reference on transnational organized crime has been developed within the G8. It was in fact addressed to the sous sherpas and dealt specifically with the preparation of that particular summit. The official statements issued at summits between 1997 and 2000 varied very little in their description of the threat and continued to rely on the words of the experts. The interviews conducted with



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the Lyon Group actors confirm that, regardless of the office or country they came from, this description received unanimous endorsement. Whether with diplomats, justice sector officials or law enforcement practitioners, there was a common thread to the interviews: nobody questioned the existence of a threat to international security from transnational organized crime and its criminal groups. For example, the actors from the Foreign Ministries used language very similar to that found in the political discourses contained in official G8 statements. Most of them, when talking about their work, thus spoke of the “unconventional threats” allegedly posed by terrorism and organized crime in the broadest sense. They saw organized crime as an “adversary” (interview, April 2003, Paris) and the problems associated with it were interpreted as being “the impact of criminal groups on the stability of states” (interview, July 2003, Paris) or a matter of “international public security” (interview, April 2005, Ottawa). They thus favored taking a very broad-based approach to transnational organized crime, which echoed what was being said by the actors from both the Interior Ministries or their equivalents and the Justice Ministries or their equivalents. They all stressed the urgent need to cooperate in the face of an “international challenge” (interview, March 2006, London): “the main thing is to take action against the threat confronting you” (interview, March 2006, Birmingham). It can therefore be argued that there was consensus among the Lyon Group delegates with regard to the threat posed by transnational organized crime. However, rather than proving that there was some kind of rationale behind this consensus, it simply shows that they shared similar views about what needed to be done to combat transnational organized crime. Hence, from a methodological perspective, it would appear amply justified to adopt an approach based on the concept of “security field professionals” rather than one which focuses on epistemic communities. The concept of “security field” was initially used by Didier Bigo to explain how the police had become “europeanized.” Drawing inspiration from Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, a security field is “a social space that transcends the internal/external, national/international divide […]. This field is determined not so much by the possibility of using force as by the ability to produce statements about who the enemy is, in other words by the ability to impose one’s authority on the definition of who or what is provoking fear” (Bigo 1996, 48). Didier Bigo places great emphasis on the diversity of the actors in the security field (they can be politicians, senior officials, police officers, legal specialists, diplomats, etc.) but points out that what they all have in common is a shared belief in their own singularity, in particular their unique ability to identify and deal with threat. The fact that there appears to be consensus among the Lyon Group actors as far as identifying threat is concerned should not, however, obscure the existence of a certain degree of discomfort on their part about the use of the expression “transnational organized crime.” While most of them do not really question the suitability of this expression, that does not mean that they unanimously accept the different “faces” this threat

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may assume. Indeed there are some indications that they sometimes encounter difficulties because of the vague and ill-defined nature of this term. For example, in an internal document from the Law Enforcement Subgroup concerning the project on pedophilia (the aforementioned Operation Osprey which was set up in 1998), reference is made to a discussion that took place between the experts about whether that offence fell within the province of transnational organized crime and thus within their mandate. The document reads as follows: “The question was asked: Is it organised crime? It is certainly transnational and involves some organisation, targeting perhaps the most vulnerable members of our societies; as such it has a high political profile” (Chairman’s summary to final plenary session 1998, unpublished document). This manifestly simplistic equation (offence of a transnational nature + a certain degree of organization = transnational organized crime) which disregards the aforementioned debates about the use of this expression is quite a good reflection of the perception of transnational organized crime held by the Lyon Group experts. Using a similar approach to that currently used in critical security studies, it is therefore worth studying how threats are gradually constructed, the rhetoric used and the type of actions called for and by whom, and the context in which such rhetoric and actions are developed (Huysmans 1998; Williams 2003; CASE Collective 2007). Indeed, determining threat is not a neutral act and in this particular case raises some important issues. The Cooperation Imperative The main issue underlying any such determination, and one which constitutes the raison d’être of the Lyon Group, is quite clearly the cooperation imperative. This imperative in fact follows from political discourses on the “new transnational threats” and is a cogent example of what Didier Bigo has called the “globalization of (in)security” (Bigo 2006). In this globalization of (in)security, the theory constructed around the field of security professionals is broadened right out to become the “field of professionals of unease management” (Bigo 2005, 2006), in which a variety of actors from many different backgrounds are brought together so that the traditional boundary between internal and external security loses its meaning. By creating a cooperation imperative, discourses on the “new threats” have had a significant effect on how the roles and responsibilities of the police and investigation services are defined. Law enforcement officials, as well as those working in the justice sector, now have to manage the internationalization of the world and are often involved in investigations and proceedings that extend far beyond the national or local context (Bigo 1995). The challenges confronting those involved in defence, law enforcement, national security and public order all now transcend the boundaries of government bureaucracies and national borders. This cooperation imperative, which has ended up changing the



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“traditional” activities of certain police officers and judges, is also a valuable discursive resource in collective identification processes. As Emmanuel-Pierre Guittet has skillfully demonstrated in the case of the cooperation imperative in the fight against terrorism that is part and parcel of “European identity,” far from being a “natural act of democratic solidarity” (Guittet 2006), this imperative above all allows a performative balance between “democracy” and “cooperation” and, as a result, even a group identity between “us” and “them” to be established. In his words, “nothing leads more effectively to the formation of a group identity than a common enemy and the construction of social frontiers is not only a symbolic activity” (Guittet 2004). The existence of this “constituting” dimension of the cooperation imperative reinforces the earlier argument concerning Russia’s incorporation into the G8. The G7’s inaugural document in 1975 already gave a clear indication of the strength of its group identity, as the extract from the Rambouillet Declaration reproduced in Chapter 1 shows. The prevailing perception during the 1990s that transnational organized crime was endangering the democratic foundations of the G7 countries, as well as Russia’s inclusion in the work of the Lyon Group from 1995 onwards and its recognition as an official member in 1998, all point to the construction of a collective sense of belonging within which security issues played a major role. From this perspective, Russia’s involvement in the Lyon Group’s work was a strong symbol of this constitution of a group identity, as well as perhaps also a gamble. The way in which Russia’s incorporation into the G7 in 2002 was described in the Kananaskis Summit communiqué is a good illustration of this: Today, we reached an historic decision on the future of the G8. In 2006, we have agreed that Russia will assume the presidency and host our annual Summit. The world is changing. Russia has demonstrated its potential to play a full and meaningful role in addressing the global problems that we all face. This decision reflects the remarkable economic and democratic transformation that has occurred in Russia in recent years and in particular under the leadership of President Putin. The G8 Summit cycle will begin again in 2003 in France followed by the United States (2004), the United Kingdom (2005), Russia (2006), Germany (2007), Japan (2008), Italy (2009) and Canada (2010). (Kananaskis communiqué, 2002)

The acquisition of this identity, much sought after by Russia and gradually accepted by the G7 countries, confers full performative balance on the cooperation imperative because it allows symbolic boundaries to be drawn between those who cooperate because they are democracies and those who do not. A second issue arising from the determination of threat concerns the direction the ensuing work takes. In the case of the Lyon Group the work is

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focused on two areas, namely the securitization of borders and ways in which the room for manoeuvre available to alleged or potential criminals can be limited. This dual strategy had already been clearly spelled out in the Denver Communiqué in 1997: In the coming year we will focus on two areas of critical concern: First, the investigation, prosecution, and punishment of high-tech criminals, such as those tampering with computer and telecommunications technology, across national borders; Second, a system to provide all governments the technical and legal capabilities to respond to high-tech crimes, regardless of where the criminals may be located. We also will develop additional methods to secure our borders. Border security is central to all efforts to fight transnational crime, drug-trafficking and terrorism. […] Our governments will also move further ahead with efforts to strengthen international legal regimes for extradition and mutual legal assistance, to ensure that no criminal receives safe haven anywhere in the world. (Denver Summit Communiqué 1997)

The need to secure borders in order to protect against a criminal threat that is perceived as coming mainly from outside is an important aspect of the rhetoric on transnational organized crime that broadly underlies all statements made by G8 actors. For example, the Judicial Cooperation Subgroup focuses on the use of extradition and mutual legal assistance to facilitate the pursuit of criminals so that they are “unable to find safe haven anywhere in the world.” The cross-disciplinary projects conducted at international level by the Law Enforcement Subgroup are also evidence of this desire to safeguard the sovereign territorial integrity of the member countries of the G8. The second focus of the Lyon Group’s work on transnational organized crime is concerned more with depriving criminal groups of the means by which they commit their crimes. Thus the aim of the Firearms Subgroup is to combat the smuggling of firearms in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of “drug traffickers and terrorists” or being used by “insurrectionary movements” (The G8 and Transnational Organized Crime Priorities for Birmingham 1998, unpublished document). As for the HighTech Crime Subgroup, its aims are extremely broad and include keeping track of all criminal activities that are made easier or possible through the use of high technology, such as piracy, illegal content on certain Internet sites and communications between criminals, which are now easier to investigate because of the increased traceability of communications. These two main focuses (the securitization of borders and the tracking of criminal means and methods), which follow from the cooperation imperative created by asserting the existence of a common enemy, are hardly original when compared to what had been the watchword of the international community for combating transnational organized crime since the end of the 1980s. The



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same position had in fact been taken by all international institutions, especially the UN and the EU. For example, in the case of the UN, the increasing attention given to the internationalization of criminal groups had resulted in the development of multilateral instruments to facilitate their pursuit at international level, eventually leading in 1990 to the drafting by the United Nations General Assembly of model treaties on extradition and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters (Gastrow 2002). The 1988 United Nations Convention on drug trafficking had also contained provisions on money laundering. At EU level, following the abolition of internal EU borders in 1987 as a result of the Single European Act, the alleged risks posed to “sieve Europe” by the development of transnational organized crime had also given rise to the establishment, within the Schengen accords, of instruments on police and judicial cooperation. The adoption by the European Council in 1990 of the Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime, known as the Strasbourg Convention, also illustrated that there was a willingness to tackle the means of committing crime. The designing of a European policy based on three distinct pillars in 1999 also marked the development of a European strategy on justice and home affairs issues within the third pillar. In December 1998 the European Council of Vienna had already taken up transnational organized crime as a specific security problem that merited a separate agenda by developing an Action Plan in which a great deal of attention was given to judicial and police cooperation. While there was clearly agreement about the need for international mobilization, this did not however mean that, in the case of the Lyon Group, there was a common front against a common enemy. In fact, even though there would seem to have been consensus about the nature of the threat and how it should be managed, it masked genuine differences over implementation. A Homogeneous Front against a Homogeneous Enemy? As Didier Bigo rightly points out, while the field of (in)securitization professionals creates forms of collaboration between agencies which in the past had very little contact with each other (except occasionally at the level of the police and courts), it also creates forms of competition between them (Bigo 2005). In this regard it is worth clarifying the different approaches identified during the interviews with the actors. Opinions that were widely shared by the actors interviewed did not in fact necessarily match the priorities set out in discourses. Noticeable differences, derived more from the particular office those concerned came from rather than their nationality, were thus evident in the views expressed. The law enforcement delegates to the Lyon Group who were interviewed indeed tended to place greater emphasis on operational difficulties. Their approach was first and foremost pragmatic and they had no hesitation in

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swiftly disposing of the sensitive issue of the definition of transnational organized crime. One of the actors who was asked about this said the following: “Not having a strict definition is not a problem. The main thing is to take action against the threat that confronts you” (interview, March 2006, Birmingham). This placing of greater value on the operational rather than the legal framework was confirmed on many occasions throughout the interviews, particularly in those conducted with the actors from the Law Enforcement Subgroup. For example, a member of this subgroup summed up its mission as being “to arrest criminal groups in one way or another, even if it is not politically correct to say so” (interview, February 2006, Paris). The same person went even further, comparing his role to “removing vermin.” Most of the members of this subgroup acknowledged that they were working together to enhance the effectiveness of cooperation, especially at police level. The judicial cooperation experts interviewed focused much more on the difficulty of defining transnational organized crime. One of them thus readily admitted that “the term “organized crime” is sometimes used in a very specific legal sense and sometimes in a much broader sense, almost tantamount to legal sociology of the criminological kind” (interview, February 2006, Paris). The same official stressed that, in order to remedy the problems that this type of fluid legal definition caused when trying to ensure that the necessary action was taken at the operational level, international definitions have mainly focused on involvement in transnational organized crime rather than on the phenomenon as such. Despite the fact that the legal interpretation of transnational organized crime differed from state to state, another judicial cooperation expert said that the specificity of organized crime as compared to other types of grave or serious crimes was internationally established and part of a “common cultural background” (interview, February 2006, Paris). The delegates to the Judicial Cooperation Subgroup of the Lyon Group who were interviewed laid great stress on the fact that, despite the technical difficulties underlying international judicial cooperation, there was general agreement about the objectives and broad lines established for dealing with the threat posed by transnational organized crime, especially the need to enhance the powers of the judiciary and police. The views of the law enforcement officials, which mainly centered on the urgency of operational matters, seem to have prevailed over those of the judicial cooperation officials, who were more concerned that such practices be framed in law. From this first argument a second ensues: the agreement reached by the Lyon Group actors with regard to the instruments to be used in combating transnational organized crime is a baseline one, which casts a considerably different light on the apparent consensus that emerges from the work they undertake. Generally speaking, attempts to define transnational organized crime at the international level have, as the judicial cooperation expert interviewed said, favored a pragmatic approach in order to make sure the action required by the cooperation imperative can be taken at the operational level. Most



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legal definitions of organized crime include the following features: a lasting group or association of two, three or more people, established to carry out criminal activities, using commonly agreed methods and means, with a view to procuring a significant level of income and thus constituting a serious threat to public security and order (Queloz 2002b, 15). A working definition was given for the first time at international level in the United Nations Palermo Convention against Transnational Organized Crime in 2000, which was drawn up following the 1994 Naples Conference. It defines criminal groups as follows: Organized criminal group shall mean a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit. (United Nations, General Assembly 2000, 4)

Within the European Union, the most sophisticated rhetoric on transnational organized crime appeared in a report prepared jointly by Europol and the Commission in December 2001. The document takes up the characteristics of organized crime set out in the Annual European Union Organised Crime Situation Report and states that to “speak of organized crime,” at least four of the 11 characteristics established need to be met: collaboration between two people or more; continuing over a relatively long or indeterminate time period; serious criminal offences suspected; the motive being gain and/or power (6204/1/97 ENFOPOL 35 REV 2 DG H II). These are the same characteristics as those defined in the Palermo Convention, except for the number of people involved (at least three for the United Nations and at least two for the EU). Considering these efforts, it has to be said that the expression “transnational organized crime” remains vague and, if definitions such as those outlined above are used, it is hard to distinguish it from ordinary crime (Bigo and Hagedorn 2002). All these attempts come up against the same stumbing block: how to distinguish between criminal associations and organized crime? If the criminal association argument had been kept, it would only comprise ordinary forms of crime, with the association aspect perhaps being seen as an aggravating circumstance, which is or was the case in the domestic legislation of many countries. If that had been the case, then this form of crime would not have required specific legislation over and above the offences already recognized in penal codes. The fact that organized crime is given special treatment in law means that a specific strategy is required to deal with it, especially at the level of the courts and police. That is what international bodies such as the UN, EU and G8 have been working towards. The Lyon Group very clearly favors an approach that is first and foremost pragmatic and operational and most of

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the experts encountered cared little about the theoretical and legal problems posed by the use of the expression “transnational organized crime.” However, tension between the judicial cooperation experts and the law enforcement specialists was noticeable in the discourse of these actors. While, as has already been said, the law enforcement delegates were not overly concerned about legal definitions, the judicial cooperation delegates, on the other hand, had some concerns about the legal framing of international cooperation. As one of the judicial cooperation experts interviewed said, although there have been the beginnings of universal harmonization, it is not complete and this is for at least two reasons: 1) Organized crime is defined in relation to the preparation of offences that incur a minimum level of punishment (4 years) yet there is not necessarily agreement about the type of offences that fall within this category. The scale of sentences varies throughout the world; 2) There are no standardized legal definitions of the forms of participating in organized crime. Traditionally, there has been a distinction between the countries that use continental law and favor the notion of criminal association [association de malfaiteurs] and the Anglo-Saxon countries which tend to focus more on the idea of conspiracy and offences of that type. But these two approaches do not fully match up. (Interview, February 2006, Paris)

The fact that justice sector specialists are struggling to find a strict universal legal definition while at the same time being confronted with a cooperation imperative that puts pressure on them to make it easier to carry out police and judicial investigations at international level, puts them in a tricky position which supports the following argument: namely that, in the face of pressing operational needs, police views prevail over the views of legal advisors. Nevertheless, in the case of the Lyon Group, this is not such a big problem and does not call into question the consensus around the cooperation imperative referred to earlier; as the judicial cooperation expert already quoted said, “It should not be forgotten that there is relative consensus within the G8 around the subject of organized crime. There may be technical difficulties, with regard to definitions, for example, but there is consensus around the objectives and main policies” (interview, February 2006, Paris). The fact that it is possible to achieve consensus is most certainly helped by the informality of the Lyon Group meetings. All of the experts interviewed said that it was not the job of the Lyon Group to establish norms in the legal sense of the term. Their work is not therefore hampered by the requirements of a strict legal framework. Particularly illuminating in this regard were the comments of the European Commission observers interviewed who indeed stressed how very efficient cooperation within the Lyon Group was compared to the cumbersome nature of European negotiations (interviews, February 2006, Brussels). According to one of the judicial cooperation experts from the Lyon Group, the purpose



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of negotiations within that group was above all to define principles and best practices and “problems would certainly arise if we went into detail” (interview, February 2006, Paris). The efficiency and speed with which jointlyagreed tools for combating transnational organized crime can be introduced is largely explained by the few constraints involved in drafting principles and best practices which, when all is said and done, are very general. They thus reflect more of a baseline consensus which can then be disseminated.

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Chapter 7

The Socialization of G8 Norms within the G8 Member States

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the “constituting” and “instituting” dimension (Castel 1985) of the Lyon Group’s expertise. An expert may be responsible for initiating the production of norms but these are then finalized, agreed and disseminated, together with the other experts in the group, the “production of norms” being understood, in this instance, as the set of guidelines drawn up by the G8 to frame and regulate the fight against transnational organized crime at international level. It is worth stressing immediately that the term “norm” is not being used in its legal sense, namely the making of a rule from which, on account of its origin (the Constitution, laws, administrative rules, international treaties and agreements …), certain legal rights and obligations derive. Given that it is not part of the G8’s remit to produce legal norms, all mention in this study to the “production of norms” by the G8 refers to its ability to prescribe behaviors, views and a value system that seek to define how states should act on the international stage (Kratochwil 1989). Best Practices and Recommendations to Combat Transnational Organized Crime Within the Lyon Group, the strategy for harmonizing criminal justice and law enforcement matters consists of establishing best practices, policy principles and recommendations, all of which may be seen as soft law instruments that are not binding on member states. This approach is not surprising if the hybrid nature of the G8 is borne in mind: the G8 is not an institution in the legal sense of the term and it is therefore not within its remit to adopt legallybinding instruments. However, to explain its approach in terms of soft law is not really adequate. The adoption of best practices or their equivalent should in fact be interpreted more as the easiest way of responding to the challenge posed by transnational organized crime. It is actually the cheapest and most consensus-based strategy but also the least precise. Given the difficulty of reaching agreement on the legal framing of transnational organized crime, preference has been given to an approach that seeks to make judicial and police cooperation easier without having to enter into the detail of legal instruments, as was confirmed during the interviews.

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The drafting of best practices and policy principles is thus the modus operandi of the Lyon Group subgroups. In International Relations, the term “best practices” is strongly linked to the notion of “good governance” and means a set of regulations that operate even though they have not been issued by an official authority and which are produced by proliferating networks in a world that is becoming increasingly interdependent (Smouts 1998b). The term “governance” has long been bound up with the practices of international financial institutions (the IMF and World Bank) and is thus similar to the notions of “sound management” and “good governance.” As far as the “best practices” drawn up by the Lyon Group subgroups are concerned, by using an approach that borrows from the analysis of public policy, it is possible to refine the discourse of the internationalists and understand the consequences of the regulation brought about by this particular modus operandi. While the notion of interdependence is crucial for understanding cooperation at the international level, especially when it entails the adoption of common instruments, it is not so appropriate for describing working methods that are based on compiling “best practices” and could lead to the adoption of a functionalist approach that sees growing interdependence as giving rise to a need for specific technical tools. Instead, examination of public policy tools at international level shows not only that there has been a change of direction on the part of states with regard to the management of international affairs but also that this needs to be recontextualized by considering the frames of reference being used by the actors who are responsible for developing them. The working framework being proposed here is an invitation to pay more attention to the instruments themselves and reconstruct their historicity, their cognitive and normative content, the networks of actors who develop them and the effects they produce. Indeed, it should be realized that, rather than being reduced to its “pure technical rationality” (Lascoumes and Le Galès 2004, 13–14), an instrument cannot be dissociated from the agents who put it into use and carry on developing it. From this perspective, public policy instruments should be seen as “bearers of values, nurtured by interpretation of the social and specific ideas about the method of regulation envisaged” (Lascoumes and Le Galès 2004, 13). This preference for developing less binding instruments (by setting out best practices and recommendations) is indisputably the method of regulation most frequently used in international negotiations, and the way in which the Lyon Group operates clearly mirrors the logics of action found in international cooperation. Within the framework of the activities of the Lyon Group and its subgroups, the drafting of best practices shows the flexibility of the experts’ work as well as the desire to achieve consensus between the delegations; in this sense, the shift from being a think-tank to the technicization of that thinking via the development of jointly-drafted best practices heavily suggests a method of working that encourages, informs and communicates. Any analysis of this shift should not content itself with simply identifying the technical choices the



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actors make but also take account of the particular beliefs and perceptions that lay behind those choices. Recognizing organized crime as a specific phenomenon, even though its nature may remain vague even for those entrusted with the task of combating it, has led to the development of a strategy that forms a common focal point for all the Lyon Group subgroups. The instruments favored have been those that seek to harmonize criminal justice and homogenize law enforcement practices. The Judicial Cooperation Subgroup promotes such practices most actively, for example, the harmonizing of requests for assistance to third countries in order to help facilitate investigations and legal proceedings, the widespread implementation of the legal rule aut dedere, aut judicare (extradite or prosecute), and easy access to police intelligence and testimonies that may help to prove that an offence has been committed. The sharing of this type of police information is generally encouraged by all the subgroups. The homogenization of law enforcement practices constitutes the second part of the experts’ strategy. The technical training of law enforcement personnel at international level and the establishment of exchange programmes and manuals of international standards on the conduct of investigations are generally said to be essential by all the experts, especially those from the Law Enforcement, High-Tech Crime and Firearms Subgroups. These examples confirm that the expert “does not adjudicate between technical options but between a selection of values” (Castel 1985, 92). None of the instruments promoted by the Lyon Group experts is in fact neutral inasmuch as each responds to a pre-established frame of reference that reflects a particular perception of transnational organized crime. From this viewpoint, “the expertise has no sense in itself outside of the contexts in which it has been constructed and deployed” (Dumoulin et al. 2005, 10); it is a valuable resource, the main purpose of which is “to impose a view, a particular conception, a meaning of events which helps to simultaneously determine and prescribe a framework of thought, an interpretation of reality, the number of legitimate actors required to intervene and the acceptable forms their work may take” (Dumoulin et al. 2005, 10). The Lyon Group experts are not in fact simply “crime technicians” whose expertise is objective and apolitical: on the contrary, they determine which instruments should be adopted in accordance with their beliefs. Their expertise entails “first and foremost knowing what to do and, still more, knowing what to say” (Veitl 2005, 15) and are consistent with “a logic of framing, a logic of codification, of objectivization” (Veitl 2005, 17). The best practices and policy principles developed by the Lyon Group, which are reflections of these logics of codification and framing, thus provide a frame of reference for both the Group actors and their administrations, as well as for a much broader set of recipients. However general and imprecise these international cooperation instruments may be, they go well beyond simply collecting information and comparing it. The Lyon Group experts draft the so-called “G8” norms in advance; their work is then endorsed and

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legitimated at the ministerial meetings of Interior and Justice Ministers and at the Summit meetings of Heads of State and Government, and is the source of the norms for fighting transnational organized crime produced by the G8. The Lyon Group can therefore be called “norm entrepreneurs” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 897), its role being essential for the latter to emerge. Logics of Framing and Codification The “constituting” dimension of the cooperation imperative to which the international struggle against transnational organized crime gives rise shows that the action taken by the G8 is based more on identifying the behavior that is appropriate, in other words on a logic of appropriateness rather than a logic of consequence (March and Olsen 1989). Indeed this logic of appropriateness appears to be reinforced through the group identity that exists within the decision-making process. In the case of the G8, a group identity has very definitely been created and revolves around several elements: open recognition of shared common values, the holding of regular meetings so that the actors socialize with each other, constant discussions which enable them to reach deeper consensus and, lastly, an outwardly projected image which makes this shared identity visible to the rest of the world. The G8 has its own dynamic; given that the norms it defines are part of a process of communication, they affect the way in which governments assess their interests. As well as having a “constituting” effect, they thus also have an intrinsically regulatory effect (Katzenstein 1996a, 5). This dual effect means that the so-called “G8” norms have a socializing effect on the behavior of the actors who make up the G8, involving “the induction of new members … into the ways of behaviour that are preferred in a society” (Risse and Sikkink 1999, 11). Given the specific nature of the Lyon Group in particular and the G8 in general (no legal status, no secretariat and no coercion mechanism), the G8 system can thus be viewed as an institution in the social sense, in other words as a group which creates a social relationship with a certain number of consequences and constraints. If the best practices and policy principles developed by the Lyon Group reflect the logics of framing and codification, how does this reference framework manifest itself both to the actors in the Group and their administrations as well as to a much broader set of recipients? It was in 1996, only a year after it was set up, that the G8 expert group on transnational organized crime submitted its 40 recommendations to the G7 Summit in Lyon (Appendix 1). These recommendations are extremely important because they form a point of reference for the work of the subgroups, their best practices and policy principles. They reflect the focus on harmonizing criminal justice and law enforcement practices referred to above. Unlike the best practices and policy principles drafted by the experts, these recommendations were not kept secret or, at the very least, given a low profile



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but were distributed widely. They formed the core of the norms for combating transnational organized crime produced by the G8 and it is mainly through looking at them that the socialization of the norms drawn up by the Lyon Group within the national practices of the member states can be assessed. However, doing so is a very tricky exercise and requires some preliminary remarks. First of all, the purpose here is not to establish a direct link between these recommendations and the practices of the G8 member states. To assert that G8 norms have been effectively translated into the practices of the member countries would mean establishing a genealogy of such practices—a task that is impossible to undertake within the scope of this study—and would require all the actors and social groups involved in this process to be taken into account, an extremely difficult task given the varied nature of the eight countries in question. Neither is the aim to examine the extent to which G8 norms have influenced legal norms at domestic level, even though some of the Lyon Group recommendations advocate the adoption of specific legal measures. In fact, as stated earlier, it is not the G8’s task to produce legal norms: it quite simply does not have the practical or legal capability to do so. Using the Lyon Group internal documents and the interviews conducted, it is more a question of demonstrating the coercive effects of these recommendations. These effects are analyzed here through the prism of the international relations theory of norms which reveals the specificity of the international stage as a space for announcing and denouncing. It is consequently from the perspective of the socialization of these norms that the following paragraphs will show how organized crime has been recognized as a specific phenomenon in the member countries of the G8—something which was presented in the Lyon Group recommendations as being a prerequisite— and then how the recommendations as a whole point to a convergence of the practices employed to combat transnational organized crime within the G8. The first 40 recommendations on transnational organized crime submitted to the Lyon Summit in 1996 by the Lyon Group were drafted on the basis of questionnaires that had been sent to all the delegations with a view to clarifying and sharing the national criminal justice and law enforcement practices in place within each member country for the purposes of cooperation. It was unfortunately not possible to gain access to these questionnaires or to the initial responses given by the delegations. However, it was possible to consult the 1997 and 1998 interim reports they submitted concerning implementation of the 40 recommendations, except for UK’s report which was not available. Apart from the Russian delegation’s report which is only four pages long, the average length of these reports is 10 pages. All, again with the exception of the Russian report, are presented in the same form: the recommendations are listed one by one, together with specific comments from each delegation. The first of the Lyon Group recommendations, which is the most general and, on the face of it, the least technical, reads as follows: “States should review

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their laws governing criminal offences, jurisdiction, law enforcement powers and international cooperation, as well as their measures dealing with law enforcement training and crime prevention, to ensure that the special problems created by Transnational Organized Crime are effectively addressed.” This recommendation to bear the specificity of transnational organized crime in mind when developing criminal justice and law enforcement practices will be analyzed first. A thorough reading of the interim reports by the delegations shows first of all that they did indeed set out to clarify their national situations. These reports therefore constitute an important source of information because they give details of how organized crime was being tackled within each national administration as well as about “the efforts” each one deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the recommendations. Each of the reports firstly describes the existing domestic legislation. This shows that in the mid-1990s there were two distinct groups of countries within the G8: those whose domestic legislation had already taken organized crime into account prior to 1996 and those in which the specific offence of organized crime was unknown to the legislator but was about to be incorporated into the Penal Code. The countries which treated organized crime as a separate phenomenon, at the level of both the courts and the police, were—again according to the interim reports—the United States, Italy, France and Germany. The 1998 report by the US delegation announced, for example, the entry into force of the International Crime Control Act, an initiative which ensued from the 1995 Presidential Directive (PDD 42) concerning the US strategy for combating international crime. The latter included, among other things, extending US investigations abroad, encouraging extradition and promoting global cooperation. The 1997 report by the Italian delegation was much more specific. It referred to the fact that the Italian provisions for combating organized crime, both at judicial and police level, had been in existence for a long time, in particular the Law on Mafia-type associations and the role played by the national anti-Mafia department, the Direzione Nazionale Antimafia (DNA). It was as an actor experienced in combating organized crime that the Italian delegation presented itself in its report. The report by the French delegation, for its part, stated that the French Penal Code of 1994 recognized offences connected with organized crime, in particular through the Law on Organized Groups (Loi sur les bandes organisées). Similarly, the 1998 interim report by the German delegation said that German legislators had regularly adapted the Penal Code to take account of offences connected with organized crime, particularly in the realm of money laundering. Three other delegations from G8 member countries, Canada, Japan and Russia, focused more on their shortcomings in this area. The interim report of the Canadian delegation, for example, said that Canada intended to adapt its legislation in order to take more specific account of organized crime, particularly money laundering, and to give more investigative powers to the law enforcement services. The interim report of the Japanese delegation said



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that the Japanese government intended to amend its Penal Code in order to toughen up its legislation against organized crime and make it more effective. The Russian delegation, for its part, said that its government would step up its action and that a certain number of draft laws were already on the table, including one specifically dealing with organized crime and corruption. That is how the G8 member countries presented themselves. Were their descriptions of how organized crime was being tackled within each country correct? Supplementary research into the legislative situation with regard to organized crime in the G8 countries has made it possible to qualify and, in some cases, complete what was said in these interim reports. The US delegation report, for example, did not specify that the entry into force of the International Crime Control Act further extended the provisions of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Statute of 1970, which had been set in place pursuant to the conclusions of the 1967 Johnson Commission, by making more specific reference to the international dimension of organized crime. Similarly, more detailed analysis of the legislative situation in France in the early 1990s makes it possible to considerably qualify what was said in the interim French report. In fact, in France at that time no official definition of organized crime existed and the term had therefore not been translated into the Penal Code. In France suppression of crime is tailored to the individual and criminal association only enters into the equation as an aggravating factor. It is either an aggravating circumstance, combined with the notions of organized group (bande organisée) or meeting (réunion), or a specific offence, such as criminal association (l’association de malfaiteurs) (Bisiou 2004, 619). These expressions tend to describe a collective behavior, the goal of which is to commit crimes with the aid of a structure (Bigo and Hagedorn 2002). The “organized” nature of it is thus an aggravating circumstance of an offence that is already recognized in criminal law but is not in itself an indictable offence. However, the fact that there is no specific offence of “organized crime” does not mean that certain legal notions are not attached to it. Indeed the situation in Germany is similar. In the German Penal Code, as in the French one, it is in fact the notion of forming a criminal conspiracy that allows criminal organizations to be prosecuted. Article 129 of the German Penal Code states that “[a]nyone who sets up an association whose aim (is) or whose activity seeks to commit offences, and anyone who is a member of such an organization, acts on its behalf or supports it, shall be punished with imprisonment of up to five years or a fine” (quoted in Kinzig 2004, 249). However, the Law of July 15, 1992 on combating the illegal drugs trade and other forms of organized crime put an end to the silence of the German Penal Code on the subject of organized crime, which up till then had centered on the notion of “gang,” and introduced a new article 100(c) which allowed the taking of photographs and other technical means of observation to be used to investigate the facts and find out where

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perpetrators were living, as well as private conversations to be listened to and reproduced. According to the report by the Italian delegation, many means of fighting organized crime were available in the country and supplementary sources of information provided further details of these. Legal provisions were indeed particularly important in Italy, especially Law 575, the so-called “Dispositions against the Mafia,” adopted in 1965, and Law 646 (known as the Rognoni-La Torre Law), which in the 1980s provided a specific definition of a Mafia-type association, including its social and economic role. As for Canada and Japan, countries whose delegations reported shortcomings in the attention given to organized crime in their judicial and police practices, these failings need to be qualified. By 1996, Japan had already passed various laws against the Yakuzas, some dating back to the 1950s, especially the 1950 Association Control Act and the 1958 Laws on assembling with lethal weapons, as well as the law punishing witness intimidation and the 1991 Law specifically dealing with the Boryokudan (a synonym of Yakuza). It defined the Boryokudan as follows: “Any constituted organization which incites its members or the members of groups affiliated to it to commit such acts collectively and repeatedly” (Bouissou 1999). Furthermore, in 1996 Canada amended its Criminal Code by means of Bill C-95, which criminalized involvement in a criminal organization and gave the police increased powers of investigation. Finally, in the absence of the interim report by the British delegation, supplementary research has shown that, although during the 1990s the term “organized crime” had not been specifically translated into British law, resolving with others to commit a crime was punishable as conspiracy (Laborde 2005, 17), the latter being defined as an agreement to engage in illegal conduct. The 1977 Criminal Law Act characterized conspiracy as being an agreement between two or more people to pursue a course of conduct which will necessarily amount to or involve the commission of any offence or offences by one or more of the parties to the agreement. This definition is, moreover, much more flexible with regard to the implicit recognition of the organized nature of an offence than the French or German definitions are. Some interpretations of this article by the British courts have indeed accepted that it is not necessary to establish intention in order to establish conspiracy, which considerably broadens the scope for applying it (Mitsilegas 2003b). How Norms become Socialized On examining the additional information obtained with regard to the shortcomings and inaccuracies found in these reports on the state of legislation on organized crime in the G8 member countries, it is straightaway apparent that all the G8 countries possess quite a sizeable legal arsenal for combating



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organized crime, whether by means of measures that specifically target organized crime or by using other similar such legal concepts. The interim reports also show that in the mid-1990s the majority of G8 countries had police arsenals of similar size available to them for fighting organized crime. For example, some G8 countries already had law enforcement structures in place to specifically tackle organized crime. This was especially the case in France, which had l’Unité de Coordination et de Recherche Anti-Mafia (UCRAM), the Anti-Mafia Coordination and Research Unit, which was attached to the Direction Générale de la Police Nationale (DGPN), National Police headquarters, and in UK, which had the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and the National Crime Squad (NCS), both specialist agencies dealing with “serious and organized crime.” Furthermore, some G8 countries had instituted a specific operational police response before making a legislative response. For example, in Germany a definition dating from 1991-1992 that had been developed by the Interior and Justice Ministers, said the following: Organized crime is the planned perpetration of offences for the purpose of securing money or power, offences which, individually or as a whole, are of great importance, when two people come together over quite a long or indeterminate period and act together, each with a specific task, by a) taking advantage of industrial or commercial structures, b) using violence or other methods of threat or intimidation or c) exerting influence over politics, the media, public administration, justice or the economy. (Quoted in Kinzig 2004)

A police response had been introduced in advance of a legislative response in several of the eight countries. For example, the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) in UK had devised a working definition in 1994: “Organised crime constitutes any enterprise, or group of persons, engaged in continuing illegal activities which has for its primary purpose the generation of profits, irrespective of national boundaries” (quoted in Sheptycki 2002b, 512). In the two cases mentioned, the definitions had no strict legal value but they were used by the law enforcement agencies as a practical guide. These last few points further bolster the argument introduced in the previous chapter that the views of the law enforcement delegates within the Lyon Group, which tend to focus on operational practices, take precedence over those of the judicial cooperation delegates, which tend to focus on the legal framing of these practices. Furthermore, as Jorg Kinzig points out with regard to the German case, despite the absence of a specific charge of criminal organization, several different procedural measures were introduced in reaction to the danger arising from organized crime, which is not defined anywhere except by the police for the purposes of their investigations. Activities related to police

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The contents of the interim reports prepared for the Lyon Group by the delegations from the G8 member countries show, above all, that there was a common concern among the delegations to respond to the requirements of the Lyon Group’s first recommendation. This is particularly evident in the case of the Russian delegation which took the utmost care to show that it took its role in the Lyon Group extremely seriously. It thus openly admitted that organized crime in Russia gave rise to many justified concerns but said that the Russian Government fully intended to react to the threat it posed. The new Penal Code of the Russian Federation, which entered into force in January 1997, would in fact provide the framework for legislation to combat criminal associations. In particular, article 35 of the Penal Code distinguishes criminal groups from criminal associations, describing the latter as “closelyknit organized groups, set up to commit serious or extremely serious offences, or the merging of criminal groups” (Gilinski and Kostioukovski 2001, 73). Analysis of the interim reports also shows that the norms developed by the Lyon Group either legitimated practices that already existed in some of the member countries or encouraged countries to adopt them. However, study of the methods used to combat transnational organized crime in these eight countries has demonstrated that, for the majority of the G8 member countries, these criminal justice and law enforcement practices were usually already well established. This undoubtedly helped to facilitate what formed the core of discussions within the Lyon Group delegations: the task of comparing these practices and selecting “best practices” so that recommendations could be drawn up to serve as a frame of reference for international cooperation. This argument is supported by the fact that there was convergence among the Eight around the cooperation imperative. The other recommendations can be grouped into several categories: those that sought to improve judicial cooperation (mutual legal assistance and extradition) and police cooperation, those that called for witnesses to be protected during investigations and those that advocated the establishment of specific offences. Table 7.1 shows these different categories together with the main recommendations put forward by the Lyon Group for each of them. Examination of the interim reports submitted by each of the delegations again suggests that in 1996 there was a certain degree of convergence in the tools used by all the G8 countries to combat transnational organized crime. Most of the countries concerned employed similar extradition measures, mutual legal assistance procedures and special investigating techniques. While there may have been differences in the detail, most of them were in possession of a powerful legal and law enforcement arsenal for combating organized



Table 7.1

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Summary of the 40 Lyon Group recommendations (1996)

Ensure recognition of transnational organized crime in criminal law (Recommendation 1) Recognize the specificity of transnational organized crime in criminal law Develop mutual legal assistance (Recommendations 2–6) Improve mutual legal assistance and develop flexibility in the execution of requests Render mutual legal assistance, notwithstanding the absence of double criminality Simplify procedures Establish a Central Authority responsible for receiving and sending out requests for mutual legal assistance Make any information that is useful to investigations being conducted by another state available to the latter Make extradition procedures easier (Recommendations 7–13) Develop extradition networks Modernize procedures and treaties Allow for conditional extradition or apply the “extradite or prosecute” rule in the case of state nationals Allow for the extradition of fugitives in the case of serious criminal offences, even in the absence of a treaty Protect witnesses (Recommendations 14 and 15) Provide effective protection for witnesses during investigations Establish agreements to protect witnesses and other endangered persons Develop new methods of testifying Recognize specific offences (Recommendations 16, 22–24, 29 and 32) Recognize high-tech crime in domestic legislation Recognize the trafficking of drugs, firearms and human beings as offences Recognize money laundering and corrupt practices as offences Develop police cooperation (Recommendations 18–21 and 25–28) Encourage international agencies to share information Develop special investigating techniques Extend the use of liaison officers Share expertise regarding scientific and technological developments

crime. However, it was already clear that Russia was a case apart within the Lyon Group. The interim report by the Russian delegation is by far the shortest (four pages) and is not presented in the same way as the others. While the others go through the 40 recommendations one by one in order to clarify the state of their laws and practices and the extent to which they comply with the recommendations, the Russian report is much more evasive. It refers to the new 1997 Penal Code which, according to the delegation, included measures that were consistent with the Lyon Group recommendations, including the facilities provided for police and legal cooperation. It concludes as follows:

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G8 against Transnational Organized Crime Thus, we can state that the Russian Federation has attained a high level of implementation of the 40 recommendations in combating organized crime. But the outstanding problems in this sphere are still numerous. Our country will make every possible effort to solve them both at the national level and in cooperation with the Eight States as well as the rest of the world community.

Despite this statement, it has to be said that, compared to the other G8 member countries, Russia was lagging behind in many of the areas covered by the Lyon Group recommendations. This can be demonstrated by citing a specific example concerning the tackling of money laundering. The need to collaborate with the FATF in order to combat money laundering is explicitly stated in Lyon Group recommendations 29 and 33. However, no reference was made to this requirement in the Russian delegation’s report. At the end of the 1990s, Russia was the only G8 country not to have appropriate legislation based on the criteria contained in the FATF recommendations (Favarel-Garrigues 2005, 535). Its failure to comply with this requirement was confirmed during 2000. When the FATF drew up its first black list of “NonCooperative Countries and Territories” (NCCT) in the fight against money laundering, Russia was one of those singled out. However, the enormous outcry that ensued in Russia following the announcement of its NCCT ranking led to the FATF norms being expressly adopted, as a result of which Russia was taken off the list in 2002 and became a full member of the FATF in 2003. Russia was thus from then on part of the global anti-money laundering system. Though it is far too simplistic to say that Russia’s efforts in this area were a direct reaction to the shaming effect of being put on the black list, its commitment to the international fight against money laundering has been a valuable diplomatic resource (Favarel-Garrigues 2005, 535–9). As Gilles Favarel-Garrigues points out, In 2004, when questions were being asked in Western societies about the nature of the Russian political regime, the efforts being made to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism were frequently cited as exemplary proof of the commitment of Russia to the values of Western nations and of international organizations. (Favarel-Garrigues 2005, 529)

The case of Russia confirms the relevance of analyzing the G8 norms and its experts in terms of their socialization. This socialization cannot be separated from the cooperation imperative that gives the G8 its group identity. While it is very difficult to determine whether the G8 had a direct influence on the Russian Government’s decision to comply with the FATF recommendations and thereby with some of the requirements of the Lyon Group recommendations, it nevertheless seems fitting to suggest that the Lyon Group, a forum which, according to the actors interviewed, is worthwhile, contributed to the Russians’



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willingness to present themselves in a favorable light on the international stage. This goes to show the importance of the social pressure that the G8 structure exerts on its members. The fact that all the G8 countries present themselves as models of democracy thus reinforces the establishment of a performative balance between “democracy” and “cooperation,” making failure to comply with the jointly-drafted requirements more costly. From this perspective, it seems justified to see the Lyon Group recommendations as a code of good conduct. Doing so leads one to consider that the so-called “G8” norms, once adopted and legitimated at the highest level (in this case, the G8 Justice and Interior Meetings and the G8 Summits), reflect “the right way of life” (Kratochwil 2000, 57) and are intended to have an impact beyond the G8 member states, especially in other international bodies. It would appear from analyzing the interim reports of the G8 delegations to the Lyon Group that in fact the purpose of the Lyon Group recommendations is in the end not so much to specifically improve cooperation between the Eight, which is in many respects already very formalized, but rather to spread the use of common practices that have been turned into an international code of conduct. In addition, as pointed out by one of the Lyon Group actors, “[t]he task of the G8 is not really to resolve the Eight’s problems; its role is to provide impetus” (interview, July 2003, Paris). The norms championed by states that are widely seen as prosperous and desirable models in fact have a greater chance of prevailing and spreading (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 905).

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Chapter 8

Dissemination of the Lyon Group’s Recommendations

Presented as ready-made “kits,” the recommendations and best practices drawn up by the Lyon Group reflect joint agreement within the G8 on the issues and strategies to be prioritized. In this regard and in the context of the development of international regimes, the G8 gives the appearance of being a community of influential actors. This is evident not only from the strategy of complementarity that has been adopted by the Lyon Group actors but mainly from the driving role those actors seek to play on the international stage. The Lyon Group: A Strategy of Complementarity The Lyon Group was set up with the intention, according to the experts’ mandate, of compensating for the inadequacies of existing international organizations: there was a gap that needed filling. Its overall strategy was furthermore spelled out in the last five recommendations from 1996. The main idea was to encourage members of the group to work together in the decision-making bodies of other international organizations in order to give more coherent impetus and coordination to the fight against transnational organized crime at international level. At their meeting in January 1997, the Lyon Group experts agreed to forge a common G8 approach with a view to strengthening international cooperation in other international fora. In Berlin in November 1999, the heads of delegation within the Group emphasized that this was a “catalyst for international negotiations.” With this collective mandate established, the initial work carried out by the experts consisted of assessing the international conventions already in existence and identifying international structures that were seeking to address transnational organized crime. During the first two years of its work, the Lyon Group therefore carried out a number of evaluations and made an inventory of both the international conventions that were in any way connected with the general issue of transnational organized crime and the working groups from other international bodies who were already addressing the topic. The aim was to draw up a list of multilateral instruments that could help facilitate international cooperation on the issue, especially matters related to the trafficking of human beings, money laundering, drug trafficking and

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extradition and mutual legal assistance procedures. Other than the 1988 United Nations Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which was considered adequate for combating drug trafficking, and the existing international measures for tackling money laundering, especially those implemented by the FATF, the conventions examined by the Lyon Group experts were deemed to be inadequate and deficient for addressing transnational organized crime at international level. According to the internal documents, the experts agreed to work for the establishment of a single convention on transnational organized crime. The evaluation exercise enabled the experts to identify and tackle the areas where there were gaps as well as subjects that were considered to be inadequately addressed. A recurring theme thus became apparent in the internal Lyon Group documents and the interviews conducted: there was a constant desire to avoid overlap and/or duplication. The wish to be seen as an added value on the international stage is thus clearly evident in the work of the Lyon Group and the issues addressed by the subgroups amply reflect that concern. The 40 recommendations drawn up by the Lyon Group in 1996 provided some clues as to the type of activities that were seen as being the targets of transnational organized crime groups, in particular the trafficking of drugs, firearms and human beings, money laundering and corruption. The declaration issued at the G8 Summit in Birmingham two years later (1998) spelled out a “list” of criminal activities that were deemed to fall under the label of “transnational organized crime:” Globalisation has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in transnational crime. This takes many forms, including trafficking in drugs and weapons; smuggling of human beings; the abuse of new technologies to steal, defraud and evade the law; and the laundering of the proceeds of crime. (G8 Summit Declaration, Birmingham, May 15–17, 1998)

Environmental crimes and corruption were also mentioned. The work of the Lyon Group subgroups fully covers the designated “targets:” weapons smuggling (the Firearms Subgroup), the trafficking of human beings (the Migration subgroup) and new technologies (the High-Tech Crime Subgroup). The Law Enforcement Subgroup adopts a more cross-disciplinary approach that enables it to address all these different areas (as developed in Chapter 5) while the Judicial Cooperation Subgroup works more broadly to facilitate judicial and police cooperation. As far as activities not covered by the Lyon Group are concerned (money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption and environmental crime), there are a number of elements which help to confirm a point made earlier: the Lyon Group’s intention is to act where there are gaps and not a priori to take the place of other fora which are already active and seen as effective in those areas. In this regard, it is worth looking more closely at the problem of money



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laundering. As far as money laundering is concerned, it is the FATF, which was in fact set up by the G7 in 1989, which is widely seen as the preferred forum for developing universal norms. As far as drug trafficking is concerned, it is the UN conventions which are generally cited as reference, both in summit declarations and in the Lyon Group recommendations. This approach is made clear in an internal Lyon Group document. In 1997 the Lyon Group had envisaged including drug trafficking within its remit but this document shows that, after considering the existing fora devoted to this issue (particular mention was made of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Inter American Drug Abuse Control Commission and the Dublin Group), the experts decided to address it only as a secondary issue. As far as work on corruption is concerned, reference has already been made to the ad hoc group on this issue chaired by Russia and set up in 1996. However, no further information about this group emerged from the documents and interviews and it is not mentioned at all in either the internal documentation or official declarations. Several of the experts interviewed pointed to the active role played by the OECD and UN with regard to corruption, and particularly the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, adopted on November 21, 1997, and the United Nations Convention against Corruption, known as the “Merida Convention,” adopted in October 2003. Again according to the experts, the Lyon Group’s role in the drafting of these conventions was marginal. Lastly, it had been envisaged since 1997 that the Lyon Group would address environmental crime. In 1998 the British delegation proposed a project on the role of organized crime in three types of crime: the trafficking of toxic waste, CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and endangered species. The project led to an evaluation of the relevant international conventions but there seems to have been no subsequent action and no further information was found on the subject. This last example renders the Lyon Group’s strategy somewhat less clear. As confirmed during the interviews, the “targets” the Lyon Group experts chose for their work stemmed from their wish to make up for what were seen as the inadequacies of the international mobilization against transnational organized crime; the targets chosen also reflected the degree of interest that existed at national level to take up a specific issue, which was sometimes variable. In any event, an abiding feature of the concerns of the Lyon Group actors is to make reference to other international bodies involved in the international fight against transnational organized crime. By seeking out all such references in the available internal and non-published documentation, it has been possible to identify the bodies deemed relevant by the Lyon Group and determine the amount of attention devoted to each, as shown in Figure 8.1. While confirming that there was a constant concern on the part of the Lyon Group to rely on the work done by other international fora, especially to

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Figure 8.1

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References made to other international bodies by the Lyon Group (%)

ensure its own work was not superfluous and to emphasize its complementary nature, this graphic also shows that the UN, INTERPOL, EU and the Council of Europe were the arenas in which it chose to invest most effort. Nevertheless, the importance accorded to these fora does not only demonstrate the Lyon Group’s desire for complementarity; it also demonstrates its desire to provide impetus and its ability to take the initiative. The Lyon Group: A Strategy Based on Providing Impetus and Setting Standards From what some of the actors themselves said in the interviews, the role of the Lyon Group sometimes goes far beyond a desire for complementarity. The forceful expressions used by these actors when talking about the dissemination of their work are unambiguous: the Lyon Group takes it upon itself to “get negotiations under way in other international fora” (interview, April 2003, Paris); it claims to have “significant latitude to streamline. When the way has been cleared, the ball is thrown onto the international stage so that standards can be disseminated and enforced” (interview, February 2006, Paris). Among the English-speaking experts, the terms most often used in connection with the function of the best practices and recommendations drawn up by the Lyon Group are “outreach” and “outcome.” According to one of the actors interviewed, the task of the Lyon Group is “to send out a message of mobilization and guidance […] In doing so, we play an arm-twisting role” (interview, July 2003, Paris). The expression “arm-twisting,” which suggests persuasion by coercive means, was not used simply for rhetorical effect. Some of the experts interviewed



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went much further in their descriptions of how the norms developed by the G8 are disseminated. According to one of them, In general, what is done in the G8, what is said in the G8, what is agreed in the G8, will be found sooner or later at international level […] There are some positions which have been developed within the G8 but when they appear in international negotiations, especially at the UN, care is taken to ensure that they are not presented as a G8 position, otherwise they might be rejected. (Interview, February 2006, Paris)

Another actor interviewed also said: “The G8 is a world leadership body: it gives guidance and develops norms. No UN convention, for example, has a chance of seeing the light of day without the G8’s seal of approval” (interview, January 2003, Paris). This person pointed in particular to the fact that the G8 and, primarily, the Lyon Group had been responsible for the initial drafting of significant sections of the UN’s Palermo Convention and its additional protocols. Analysis of the internal documents and the information provided by some of the Lyon Group actors has confirmed this to be the case. The UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (opened for signature in Palermo in December 2000), known as the Palermo Convention, gave rise to a wealth of academic literature in which the convention has been widely presented as being the first international instrument for combating transnational organized crime (Albrecht and Fijnaut 2002). The purpose of the convention was in fact said to be an attempt to standardize domestic legal instruments (especially with regard to mutual legal assistance and extradition procedures), facilitate criminal investigations and establish common offences in relation to participation in an organized criminal group, money laundering, corruption and obstruction of justice (Kilchling 2002). These aspects of the Palermo Convention, which are explained and widely commented on in the literature, continue in the direction taken by the international community since the 1980s and formalize it at the universal level. –– The Palermo Convention in fact had its origins in the Naples Ministerial Conference of 1994 organized under the aegis of the UN. However, as stated by Peter Gastrow, that conference had not explicitly started to draft a convention on transnational organized crime within the context of the UN because there was some scepticism, mainly on the part of Western countries, especially those from Europe, about the feasibility of establishing a global instrument (Gastrow 2002, 27). It was only after repeated requests from developing countries and, above all, the United States that it was agreed to start drafting a convention within the UN context. In December 1996, a proposal was submitted to the UN General Assembly by the Polish delegation resulting in the establishment of an ad hoc UN committee to head the negotiations.

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Although many articles and works have examined how the convention and the negotiating procedures that preceded it came into being, none of them mention the G8 as having had a role in its drafting. So how should the G8’s role as norm entrepreneur be understood? When describing the different subgroups and ad hoc groups set up by the Lyon Group, mention was made of an ad hoc group set up in 1997 to prepare the Palermo Convention (see Chapter 5). Although to date no documents specifically referring to this group have been found, some internal documents from the subgroups, especially the Judicial Cooperation, Migration and Firearms Subgroups, provide valuable clues about the very active role played by the Lyon Group on the fringes of the negotiations on the Palermo Convention and its additional protocols. In particular, a document dating from 1996 and listing the different international conventions against transnational organized crime then in existence clearly spells out the general approach the Lyon Group sought to take with regard to the Palermo Convention. The document suggests that, based on the proposal submitted to the UN by the Polish delegation, the Lyon Group worked on drafting a common position with regard to the UN convention, mainly using the following proposals presented to the Lyon Group by the US delegation: –– in the introduction favor a general approach to organized criminal activities rather than the generic concept of “serious crimes;” –– make the convention applicable to all crimes incurring sentences of at least four years in order to avoid the difficulties inherent in reaching agreement on a list of crimes or a common definition of organized crime; –– given the relativity of the expression “serious crime” in the light of the diversity of domestic legislation, include the principle of dual criminality in the convention; –– in the convention promote the use of appropriate prevention tools, such as special investigative techniques, witness protection programmes, the provision of technical assistance and information sharing. It is interesting to note that all these appear explicitly in the Palermo Convention of 2000. Furthermore, between 1997 and 2000, the Lyon Group subgroups put forward numerous proposals and initiatives that were very directly related to the drafting of a UN instrument against transnational organized crime. Several of these documents also show that the G8 members were willing to meet together on the margins of the meetings organized in Vienna by the UN ad hoc committee. The Firearms and Migration Subgroups, in particular, collaborated on the three additional protocols to the convention. Thus, between 1997 and 1999, the Firearms Subgroup of the Lyon Group drew up a specific proposal with regard to the drafting of the Protocol against



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the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms. While the documents available offer little information about the content of these proposals, they contain certain clues that betray the Lyon Group’s involvement in the implementation of this protocol. For example, they show that the proposed text of the latter was drafted by the Canadian delegation and that it was agreed that the members of the Firearms Subgroup would meet outside of the UN ad hoc committee in order to ensure that the G8 approach prevailed. The documents obtained give further details about the work carried out by the Migration Subgroup in connection with the preparation of the additional protocols to the Palermo Convention on the trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants. In-depth study of the role played by the Migration Subgroup in the inception of these two protocols provides important clues about the significant role the Lyon Group played in drafting the Palermo Convention. The different names this subgroup has been known by, as indicated in the internal documents, show that the G8 experts had a particular approach to migration issues and their links with transnational organized crime. Known in turn as the “Alien Smuggling Subgroup” in 1996, the “Alien Smuggling and Document Fraud Subgroup” in 1997, the “Alien Smuggling and Border Control Subgroup” and the “Illegal Immigration and People Smuggling Subgroup” in 1998, before becoming the “Migration Subgroup” in 2000, this subgroup has continually focused on illegal immigration, an issue that is seen as a common threat by all the delegations from the G8 member countries. Its 1996 report indeed shows that the attention of the experts was focused mainly on illegal immigration networks and went as far as to “target” the states that had become a source of concern. In particular, it states: The general presentation showed the main illegal immigration network routes and the P8 delegations were quickly able to agree on the points listed below: 1) All the Member States were, to varying degrees, both transit countries and countries of destination for illegal immigrants. The transnational nature of the problem of illegal population movements was therefore unanimously acknowledged. 2) All the Member States noted that illegal immigration networks were operating in an increasingly professional manner and controlled by structured criminal organizations with international ramifications. 3) All the Member States stressed the increasing use of counterfeit and forged documents, and stolen genuine blank documents, as essential instruments in the illegal immigration process. 4) Although certain countries (Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Iran, Mexico, etc...) are often the cause of concern as sources of illegal immigration. the P8 delegations unanimously agree that the threat stemming from the constant increase in illegal immigration from China calls for particular vigilance now that the change in Hong Kong’s legal status is only months away.

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The rhetoric used in this document is reminiscent of alarmist social representations that focus on the fear of foreign penetration. The specific projects carried out by the Law Enforcement Subgroup on organized crime in West Africa, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe also indicated a shared concern among the eight member countries about illegal immigration from “at risk” countries. Concerns about the victims of trafficking thus seem to have been largely relegated to a position of secondary importance. The best practices and policy principles drawn up by the Migration Subgroup are a remarkable example of this. Between 1996 and 1999, the work of this subgroup was in fact largely devoted to preparing the UN’s Palermo Convention of 2000, in particular the two additional protocols on the trafficking of humans and the smuggling of migrants. The common operational approach advocated by the experts in the Migration Subgroup was translated into an agreement on the principles and instruments considered essential for cooperation to take place: 1. a recognized principle of “no safe haven” for people implicated in, profiting from or participating in the trafficking of human beings; 2. standardization at legislative level of the legal definition of the trafficking of migrants and the criminal penalties applicable to traffickers; 3. an increase in investigations coordinated at international level as well as the coordination of legal proceedings against traffickers; 4. improved information sharing at international level; 5. improved laws at domestic level for preventing, detecting and combating activities connected with the trafficking of migrants; 6. the need for shared data to be safeguarded; 7. the need to train the personnel involved in combating this type of trafficking. A certain number of points concerning the guidance provided by the experts from the Migration Subgroup need to be made. Firstly, the objectives listed above were headed “Principles for a United Nations protocol on the trafficking of migrants” and centered mainly on traffickers and migrants, with no reference at all to the trafficking of human beings in general and its victims, even though the negotiations on the two protocols had set out with that purpose. Furthermore, in the end the Migration Subgroup focused very little on the trafficking of human beings as such. This argument can be refined by cross-referencing it with another document. Agreement on the strategy to be adopted in relation to the UN protocol had been finalized at the Lyon Group meeting in November 1998 where discussion mainly revolved around a proposal that had been put forward by the German delegation at an earlier meeting in March. Although few details of the German proposal are available, some general points about the approach taken to it can be found in an internal document.



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The document in question provides information about several aspects of the proposal: it focused on illegal immigration even though the heading of one section of the document (Combat the organized trafficking of human beings) suggested a more general approach; emphasis was also given to the need for judicial and police cooperation in order to pursue and punish traffickers; and, lastly, prevention was approached from the perspective of the issuing of visas and the need to counter the manufacturing of false travel documents. There was also mention of measures concerning the possible repatriation of people who had made use of traffickers. From these recommendations and policy principles that had been jointly developed in the Migration Subgroup, it can be seen that the favored approach was to focus mainly on illegal immigration, in other words one that seeks to criminalize not only the traffickers but also the migrants themselves. While the additional protocol on the smuggling of migrants adopted at the same time as the Palermo Convention contains an article that expressly prohibits the criminalization of victims of this type of smuggling (Art. 5), people present at the negotiations have said that the inclusion of this article was the subject of fierce negotiation in which there was a definite North-South divide. Broadly speaking, this particular protocol was viewed with a great deal of distrust by the developing countries and very few of them have ratified it. The Palermo Convention is undoubtedly the clearest example of the steering role the Lyon Group has taken on. However, it is not a question of claiming that the Lyon Group was the only driving force behind the negotiation of this convention or that it had a decisive influence in its drafting but of recognizing that it was an active participant in the negotiating process, thereby becoming a part of the network of transnational expert groups developed by other international fora. The importance of the role played by the G8 and its experts in the drafting of international systems for countering transnational organized crime has also been confirmed in fora other than the UN. The links between INTERPOL and the Lyon Group have, for example, been particularly strong and show that the experts from the Law Enforcement Subgroup have had a considerable influence on the initiatives taken by INTERPOL, especially the establishment of best practices to counter pedophilia on the internet and the setting up of databases on organized crime in Eastern Europe, which were mentioned earlier (see Chapters 4 and 5). In addition, according to the Lyon Group actors interviewed, representatives of INTERPOL are regularly invited to attend meetings of the Group. Norm Dissemination: The Strategic Position Enjoyed by the Lyon Group Broadly speaking, the Lyon Group recommendations have provided a remarkable impetus and are recognized as a point of reference by the

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whole international community (Fontanaud 2002). Their comprehensive and pragmatic nature make it easy for them to be taken up by numerous international organizations. They inspired, for example, the work of the European Union’s “Multidisciplinary Group on Organized Crime.” The meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council of March 19, 1998 also referred very directly to the 10 G8 principles on high-tech crime, which had been made public during the December 1997 meeting of the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers and prepared by the the High Tech Crime Subgroup, and invited the member states of the European Union who are not members of the G8 to take steps to join the network of G8 24/7 High Tech Contact Points set up to combat high tech crime. The task of disseminating the norms developed by the Lyon Group is amply facilitated by the fact that the G8 forum constitutes a first-rate communication platform that is conducive to their circulation: involving participants from four EU countries (France, the UK, Germany and Italy, all of whom also participate in Council of Europe ministerial meetings), one influential Asian country (Japan), North America (Canada and the USA) and Russia, G8 meetings are ideal for disseminating messages on the international stage. The involvement of other bodies in the G8 process, especially that of the EU, is also all too often forgotten. Since 1977, in fact, the President of the European Commission has been invited to attend summits and the President of the European Council was invited for the first time in 1982. The European Union is the ninth de facto member of the group; it sends a delegation to all summits and ministerial meetings and participates in the preparatory process. A delegation from Justice and Home Affairs, these days called JLS (Justice, Liberty and Security), thus systematically has observer status at meetings of the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers as well as at meetings of the Lyon Group. In this regard, some of the members of those European delegations who were interviewed said that the G8 plays a key role, especially through its ability to influence what is done within the EU. Some of those who attended Lyon Group meetings as observers also said how satisfying it was to participate in them since they found them far more efficient than the cumbersome European procedures (interviews, February 2006, Brussels). Another factor that helps to explain how the G8 norms on transnational organized crime are disseminated, is the fact that the Lyon Group actors often hold many different positions on the international stage. As indicated earlier, most of the actors interviewed participate simultaneously in working groups that are similar to the Lyon Group within the UN, OECD, EU and even the Organization of American States (OAS). The Lyon Group experts are therefore mobile and move from one forum to another. While this multipositioning undoubtedly deserves further clarification and research, the aspects brought to light here show that these state officials, who have been designated as experts, move to and fro between the different debating arenas,



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within which principles, norms and rules are developed: international regimes in the classic Krasnerian sense (Krasner 1983). This circulatory effect makes any attempt to determine the respective shares of influence in establishing these international regimes difficult. It does show, however, why international guidelines for combating transnational organized crime have developed along similar lines. Furthermore, as some Lyon Group actors have pointed out, this world of organized crime experts “is a small world. You keep seeing each other at one meeting after another, you bump into the same people” (interview, February 2006, Paris); “It’s almost always the same people working on organized crime. It is a network of experts which came into being almost naturally” (interview, April 2005, Ottawa). Creating an even more elaborate picture, another of the actors said that “the experts are not interchangeable, it’s like when you go to fashion shows, you find the same people at Lacroix or Saint Laurent, even if the dresses are not the same” (interview, February 2006, Paris). These comments corroborate the fact that the G8 and its Lyon Group experts have been completely integrated into the mechanisms through which international regimes emerge. In this regard, the important role played by the Lyon Group in drafting the Palermo Convention and the influence its recommendations have had in other international fora should not mask the vast array of actors who are involved in developing international regimes. The Lyon Group should not be understood as purely and simply a purveyor of international norms but rather as one of the key actors in their emergence. Is not the Lyon Group in this respect illustrative of the important role played by these informal international meeting places, being at one and the same time places of sociability, emergence, development and professional recognition that are conducive to the circulation of practices and know-how? The case for subscribing to this position has been further strengthened since September 11, 2001, following which the structure and role of the Lyon Group was redefined.

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Chapter 9

From the Lyon Group to the Lyon/Roma Group

We, the leaders of the G8, condemn in the strongest terms the barbaric acts of terrorism carried out against the United States of America on 11 September. […] We have asked our foreign, finance, justice, and other relevant ministers, as appropriate, to draw up a list of specific measures to enhance our counter terrorism cooperation, including: Expanded use of financial measures and sanctions to stop the flow of funds to terrorists, aviation security, the control of arms exports, security and other services cooperation, the denial of all means of support to terrorism and the identification and removal of terrorist threats. By identifying and implementing specific measures, we underscore our determination to bring to justice the perpetrators of this outrage, to combat all forms of terrorism, to prevent further attacks, and to strengthen international cooperation in the fight against this global scourge. We welcome all others who stand ready to join us in these efforts, and we stand ready to help them.

This extract from the statement issued by the G8 Heads of State and Government in the wake of the September 11, attacks shows that they unanimously condemned the attacks, thus prompting them to appeal once again for cooperation which, according to them, needed to be strengthened and extended. It was in this context that the Lyon Group gradually became associated with the Roma Group, another group of experts within the G8 system that devoted itself solely to terrorism questions. From the Lyon Group to the Lyon/Roma Group (2001–2003) Although the name “Lyon/Roma Group” was only adopted in 2003, it was the attacks of September 11, 2001 that initially prompted the Lyon and Roma Groups to come together, starting in November of that year. This coming together and collaboration continued and increased during 2002 when several joint meetings of the two groups took place. Further details of the Roma Group and how terrorism came to be on the Eight’s agenda helped to provide a better understanding of the context in which the merging of the Lyon and Roma Groups took place.

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International terrorism had been addressed at G7 Summits (when Russia was not yet a member) since the late 1970s. It was the first time that the G7 Heads of State and Government had dared to venture outside of the macroeconomic sphere (Bayne and Putnam 1987, 86). Terrorism was taken up by the Seven as an international issue that required discussion largely in reaction to specific events that had affected one or several members of the group. For example, the first reference to terrorism in Summit communiqués appeared in 1978 at the Bonn Summit, which was organized under the presidency of Chancellor Schmidt in the context of the taking of hostages by the Red Army Faction (RAF). The Venice Summit communiqué of 1980 included condemnation of the taking of diplomats as hostages and that same year saw the hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Teheran. The most striking references to terrorism appeared in communiqués issued at the summits held in Tokyo (1986), Paris (1989), Halifax (1995) and Lyon (1996) in relation to the Libyan situation, the Lockerbie bombing (1989), the Paris bombing (1995), the Tokyo gas attack (1995) and the bombing in Dhahran (1996). Terrorism never completely ceased to be of concern to the Seven between 1975 and 2001. However, yet again, as in the case of the Lyon Group, which came into being after organized crime was added to the G8’s agenda, the genesis and activities of the G8 expert group on terrorism were shrouded in secrecy. In fact, the existence of such a group was only really made public in official G8 communiqués after the attacks of September 11, 2001, in particular in the statement issued by the Justice and Interior Ministers at their meeting in Mont-Tremblant in 2002. Although the group was mentioned, the conditions in which it was set up and the reasons for doing so have never been revealed. What is more, its emergence has been the subject of an extremely interesting chronological distortion. Some scholars believe that it was set up in 1986 following the Tokyo Summit (Belelieu 2002) and this has been confirmed by certain Canadian official websites, in particular those of the Justice and Foreign Affairs Ministries. However, according to the website of the French Justice Ministry, it was set up in 1982. Bayne and Putnam, for their part, claim that the G7 expert group on terrorism dates from the 1980s and point out that in 1987, within the G7, there was “a useful, if cumbersome, network of official groups on terrorism, hijacking and drugs, capable of effective preparation and follow-up” (Bayne and Putnam 1987, 244). Further research has not succeeded in establishing exactly when this particular group of experts came into being; in fact this subject merits further in-depth investigation which falls outside the scope of this study. Information gleaned from official documents and the few articles in which the group is mentioned has, nevertheless, provided some clues as to the nature of the group. According to data compiled by the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto, meetings of these experts seem to have taken place on an irregular basis between 1980 and 1997. Then, between 1997 and 2001, except for 2000, annual meetings took place: in Washington in April 1997, London in March



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1998, Berlin in November 1999 and Rome in March 2001. However, to date nothing is known about the identity or the precise origins of the actors in this group. From the interviews conducted, it appears that, prior to 2001, the expert group on terrorism mainly consisted of police officers and Interior Ministry officials from the G7 countries. The role these experts played in drafting common positions within the G7/8 is hard to gauge. In this regard, an official G7 position on terrorism was first established in 1995 following the Ottawa Conference that was devoted specifically to that issue. An action plan, centering on two main strategies, was thus adopted (Belelieu 2002). The first strategy sought to promote mutual legal assistance, facilitate extradition procedures, ensure the validity of travel documents and improve protection for all modes of transport. The second sought to give the G7 a greater role on the international stage in the fight against terrorism. Although there are some indications that the G7 experts on terrorism may have been behind this action plan, it has not been possible to confirm it. According to one of the most longstanding members of the Lyon Group, before 2001 the purpose of the G7/8 expert group on terrorism was mainly to collectively assess the terrorist threat, and its working methods and the process for feeding its work back to the G8 were far less formalized than in the case of the Lyon Group (interview, April 2005, Ottawa). Lastly, although by 2002 this G7/8 expert group on terrorism was definitely known as the “Roma Group,” quite how it came by that name is not at all clear. For example, the website of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the following: … the fight against terrorism and organized crime in the context of the Lyon/Roma Group, from the name of the two Summits which presided over their establishment: the Lyon Group in 1996 in the case of the fight against organized crime and the Roma Group in 1982 in the case of the expert meetings on terrorism. (Page consulted in April 2007)

Yet, in 1982, the Summit which supposedly gave its name to the G8 group on terrorism took place in … Versailles. No G7/8 Summits had taken place in Rome since 1975. If this group dates back to 1986, as the official Canadian sites suggest, then the name “Roma” would also appear to be unjustified since in that year the G7 Summit was held in Tokyo. On the other hand, from the list of meetings compiled, it can be seen that the last meeting of the group prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001 was indeed held in Rome in March of that year. So was the name “Roma Group” given to the G8 expert group on terrorism after that meeting so that it matched the already well-established name of “Lyon Group?” It has not been possible to reach a firm conclusion but it has to be said that the Roma Group’s institutional memory is extremely vague on this point and unquestionably much more so than in the case of the Lyon Group. In any event, it was in 2001 that the experts from the Lyon Group

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and those from the Roma Group first collaborated. The collaboration grew stronger during 2002 and turned into an extremely productive partnership. According to information gathered during the interviews, right from September 2001, when the Lyon Group was meeting in the wake of the September 11, attacks, the Roma Group experts were invited to participate in a review of the 1996 recommendations on transnational organized crime. The new jointly-drafted recommendations were thus submitted to the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers for approval in May 2002. In a “backgrounder” dating from March 2002, addressed to the press and available on line, the official website of the Canadian Justice Ministry confirmed this coming together of the Lyon Group and the Roma Group: Historically the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers’ Meeting has focused on the work of the Lyon Group (formerly the Experts Group on Transnational Organized Crime). However, following the events of September 11, they will also incorporate the work of the Roma Group (formerly the Counter Terrorism Experts Group) into their discussions. (Page consulted in May 2007)

However, it was only under the French presidency, during the Evian Summit of 2003, that formal collaboration between the two groups was established. It was thus a statement by the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers dated March 2003 that made the very first reference within the G8 system to what would from then on be called the “Lyon/Roma Group.” Information obtained during the interviews in fact confirmed that it was in 2003 that the Roma Group joined forces with the Lyon Group as an additional subgroup within the latter: the Intelligence Practitioners Subgroup, which was made up of members of the intelligence services from the G8 member countries. According to the same sources, the structure of the Lyon/Roma Group from 2003 onwards was as shown in Figure 9.1. The Lyon/Roma Group operates along the same lines as the Lyon Group, in particular as far as the regularity of its meetings and the procedures for feeding its work back to the G8 as a whole are concerned. Its place within the G8 has not therefore changed, especially in terms of how it relates to the meetings of Justice and Interior ministers and the summits. From 2004, the “Lyon/Roma Group” became its official name; it was used by all the actors interviewed without exception. It is in this sense that one can speak of a “partnership” between the two groups of experts since the use of this word makes it clear that, though retaining relative autonomy, the participants in the Lyon and Roma Groups were in agreement that their respective knowhow and guidelines should be pooled so that their objectives could be met. This partnership came into being mainly as a result of the enormous impact the attacks of September 11, 2001 had on political agendas and not, as official



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Lyon/Roma Group

Figure 9.1

Organization chart of the Lyon/Roma Group for 2003

documents tend to suggest, because transnational organized crime and terrorism had suddenly merged to become an even bigger threat than before. Had Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism Really Merged? Experts from the Lyon Group had already invited their counterparts from the Roma Group to attend a meeting in Berlin in November 1999. The ostensible aim of the meeting was to determine what the two groups could

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contribute to each other and to see whether closer cooperation between them might be worthwhile. The experts agreed that countering terrorism and fighting transnational organized crime had a good deal in common but not in enough areas to warrant increasing cooperation between the two groups. From rereading all the official statements issued at the different levels of the G8 system since 1975, a definite lack of consistency by comparison with the statements made in the wake of the events of September 11 is evident because, although terrorism had been one of the most enduring concerns of the G7 and subsequently the G8, it co-existed with transnational organized crime for a long time without discourses or collective work establishing links between the two issues. Looking first at G7/8 summits, terrorism-related issues and the problem of transnational organized crime were addressed and mentioned mainly in the 1989, 1996 and 1997 declarations but a clear distinction between the two was maintained. The same applied to the meetings of the Interior and Justice Ministers. At the ministerial meetings in Moscow in October 1999 and Milan in February 2001, references to the terrorist attacks carried out in Russian in August 1999 and the UN convention on the financing of terrorism provided an opportunity to condemn terrorism and support the efforts of the international community but there was no indication whatsoever of a supposed merging with transnational organized crime. Following the meeting of the Interior and Justice Ministers in 2002, the first following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the statement made by the Canadian representative, who was hosting the meeting, thus indicated a definite lack of coherence with earlier ministerial statements: We share the view that the events of September 11 underscore the importance of a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach in order to understand the links between international crime and terrorism. Such an approach will also maximize the use of domestic and international tools to combat both terrorism and crime. […] We are very pleased to endorse the revised G8 Recommendations on Transnational Crime. These reflect the most recent analysis of investigative techniques, laws and cooperation tools that should be developed internationally to protect our societies from transnational crime and terrorist threats. (G8 Justice and Interior Ministers’ Meeting, Mont-Tremblant, May 13–14. 2002)

Why this abrupt change in rhetoric and/or perception following the attacks of September 11, 2001? Is the change in discourse sufficient explanation for the reorientation and restructuring of the Lyon and Roma Groups? In a context in which the political agendas of the Eight were converging around the challenge of combating terrorism, the first noticeable change was the decision to organize the Lyon/Roma Group in a more rational way. Bringing together these two threats (terrorism and organized crime) also meant that the



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measures used to combat transnational organized crime could be transferred to countering terrorism. First of all, some of the interviews indicate that the Lyon Group was to a certain extent running out of steam right at the end of the 1990s and especially in 2000 and 2001, especially after the entry into force in 2000 of the UN Palermo Convention. In fact, when the Okinawa and Genoa Summits were being organized under the presidency of Japan and Italy respectively, the issue of transnational organized crime seems to have become a secondary concern for the Eight; it was not referred to at all in the declarations issued by those two Summits. In this context, and according to one of the Lyon Group actors interviewed, “the upsurge of emotion after September 11 is one reason why the Lyon Group survived” (interview, April 2003, Paris). According to another expert, who also admitted that the work of the Lyon Group had slowed down somewhat under the two presidencies preceding September 11, the coming together of the Lyon Group and the Roma Group stemmed more from the Roma Group’s lack of effectiveness and its relative marginalization within the G8 system (interview, April 2005, Ottawa). In this regard, two of the Lyon Group actors suggested that the most powerful argument in favor of merging the two groups had been the desire to take advantage of the effectiveness and more formalized status of the Lyon Group (interview, April 2005, Ottawa). Several of the interviewees also said that the Roma Group was given a new lease of life following September 11, especially as far as its particular position within the new Lyon/Roma Group was concerned. The decision to benefit from the Lyon Group’s structure, which was seen as effective and better integrated into the G8 system, thus stemmed from the fact that the G8 Heads of State and Government wanted to prioritize the question of terrorism. One of the actors admitted that that decision caused a backlash for the Lyon Group in that it pushed the fight against transnational organized crime to the sidelines. The views these Lyon Group actors held of the links between terrorism and transnational organized crime at the theoretical and practical level also indicate the flaws in what the official documents suggest, namely that it was self-evident that the two issues should be merged. Many of the experts interviewed in fact stressed that they made a distinction between terrorism and transnational organized crime. Some did so in their personal capacity, others were expressing the position of their national government. For example, members of the French delegation to the Lyon/Roma Group spoke of a strong French position that saw criminal activities as separate from terrorist activities: “France makes a distinction between the two. Organized crime is out to make money. The term terrorism should not be misused. Terrorism is a political undertaking” (interview, February 2006, Paris); “Not all G8 members were in agreement about setting up a new group. But some (especially the United States) thought that organized crime and terrorism were the same thing, others thought they were two different problems” (interview, April 2003, Paris). One member of the British delegation also put forward his

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country’s official position: “UK is against an over-simplistic view. Organized crime and terrorism are not always linked” (interview, March 2006, London). Others, on the other hand, gave their personal views: “There are sometimes links between organized crime and terrorism but they mustn’t be exaggerated. We mustn’t give way to arguments such as, ‘You take drugs so you are a terrorist’” (interview, April 2005, Ottawa). However, one common element in all the discourses of the Lyon/Roma Group actors needs to be highlighted. Although some played down the relevance of the merging of the two groups, all in fact put forward similar arguments to justify the joint work undertaken by the Lyon/Roma Group: the methods and means employed by criminal groups and terrorist groups were said to be similar, therefore the tools for combating the two groups were similar and needed to be improved. So the actor who stressed that the French position was to maintain the distinction between organized crime and terrorism nevertheless said that, “keeping the two separate within the Lyon/ Roma Group would not be effective” (interview, April 2003, Paris). Another said: “All the tools set in place to fight terrorism are the same as for organized crime” (interview, February 2006, Paris). This common stance on the part of the Lyon/Roma Group actors suggests that the cooperation imperative has once again prevailed over the limitations that are inherent in the many facets of the problem being addressed. Indeed the assumption that terrorism and transnational organized crime have merged is open to question. Just as the review of the literature presented in the first two chapters of this study gave an extremely oversimplified picture of transnational organized crime, there is also an abundance of literature on the supposedly inextricable links between terrorism and organized crime (Shelley 2002; Shelley and Picarelly 2002). This literature bases its argument mainly on the fact that criminal organizations and terrorist groups use the same methods to commit their crimes (money laundering, the selling of false travel documents, etc). Some scholars go even further and claim that there are alliances between terrorist groups and criminal organizations (Williams 1995) and some evoke notions of “gangsterrorists” to describe the hypothetical strategic relationships between criminals and terrorists (Raufer 2002). Others, on the other hand, have convincingly challenged these arguments and claims, in particular by showing the artificiality of amalgamating two such complex issues as organized crime and terrorism into the same so-called global threat (Naylor 2002, 2006; Chocquet 2003; Bigo 2005). Here the intention is not so much to stress the care that needs to be taken with regard to what has been presented in numerous discourses as a protean threat (in which terrorism and organized crime practically become a single entity) than to emphasize the window of opportunity that this coupling has allowed in terms of means and operational and structural changes. While it is right to be wary of “the amalgam which involves overestimating the porosity that exists between political violence and common law crime and ends up simply confusing the



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two phenomena” (Chocquet 2003), it is also right to recognize that the alleged merging of these two issues has created opportunities for implementing new and/or stronger measures (Beare 2005). As for the experts from the Lyon/Roma Group, the social construction of the merging of terrorism and organized crime has left some of them sceptical; on the other hand, by focusing on the cooperation imperative, it has been possible to strengthen the group’s structures, extend its life and, above all, give greater legitimacy to the tools that it seeks to promote. The reorientation of the Lyon Group’s agenda in the context of post-September 11, 2001 has therefore stemmed from that fact that there was fairly general agreement among the experts that the tools used to combat organized and terrorism needed to be strengthened. This reorientation is also confirmed by the socio-professional distribution of expertise within the Lyon/Roma Group. Changes in the Socio-professional Distribution of Expertise While it is right not to turn the September 11 attacks into a kind of year zero in the fight against terrorism (Bonelli 2005) as a great deal of the literature tends to do, the partnership between the Lyon Group and the Roma Group has had a number of consequences. The most striking is unquestionably the rise in status enjoyed by the experts from the law enforcement and intelligence services to the detriment of those from the justice sector. This is illustrated in a very interesting unofficial document obtained during an interview conducted in 2006. The document in question is simply a list of delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group that was drawn up by the British presidency in 2005 when preparing the meeting of the group held in November of that year. While it may be just an ordinary document, given the difficulties encountered in obtaining it (the most frequent argument for not making it available being that it was confidential), it would appear to be quite unique as a research tool. The 12-page list, dated November 9, 2005, shows the delegation members by country and, in most cases, specifies the national institutions to which they belong. Using this list, which comprises 261 participants, as a basis, it is thus possible to examine the composition of the Lyon/Roma Group. While the list does not show the distribution of delegates by subgroup, it does make it possible to first of all determine with some degree of precision how many delegates per member country were in attendance, as shown in Table 9.1. The table firstly shows that the delegations, especially the European ones, were fairly equally balanced. There was a disproportionate number of members in the British delegation because the delegation that has the presidency is usually the one that has the most delegates at meetings. In November 2005, the Lyon/Roma Group was still being chaired by the British. The large number

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Table 9.1

G8 against Transnational Organized Crime

Delegations to the Lyon/Roma Group, November 2005 Number of delegates

Germany

21

Canada

28

France

20

Italy

26

Japan

28

UK

70

Russia

51

United States

33

European Commission

10

TOTAL

261

of US delegates also confirms what many experts said during the interviews, namely that the US devoted far more attention to the Lyon/Roma Group after September 11, 2001. The size of the Russian delegation, at first sight surprising, was mainly due, according to some of the actors interviewed, to Russia’s desire to prepare itself for the presidency of the G8 which it was going to take on for the first time in 2006. Using the list of participants in the Lyon/ Roma Group, it has also been possible to chart the distribution of delegations by the office or service they came from as well as by member country. Using this data, the delegates from the different administrations represented in the Lyon/Roma Group have been grouped together by center of interest: Intelligence, Police, Interior Ministry or equivalent, Justice Ministry, Foreign Affairs Ministry, Transport and Finance. The following resulting charts again show that the delegates affiliated to the police and intelligence services and Interior Ministries or their equivalents made up the majority on the Lyon/Roma Group, especially compared to their counterparts from the Justice Ministries or their equivalents. This predominance was confirmed by the actors interviewed. Those who were in the Lyon Group before it merged with the Roma Group in fact confirmed that, prior to September 11, there was a fairly equal number of staff from the Justice and Interior Ministries. Although it is not possible to back this up with more specific data, it gives support to the idea that the Lyon/Roma Group has accorded greater importance to the police and intelligence realms, thereby influencing the direction of the group and the strategies it formulates.



Figure 9.2

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Distribution of the French delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005

Notes: The French delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group came mainly from the intelligence services (Unité de Coordination de la Lutte Antiterroriste (UCLAT), Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire et Renseignements Généraux (DST et RG)) and the police (mainly the Direction Centrale de la Police judiciaire (DCPJ)).

Figure 9.3

Distribution of the German delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005

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Figure 9.4 Distribution of the Italian delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 Notes: For the other G8 member countries, the list does not make it possible, in most cases, to differentiate between the intelligence members from the Interior Ministry or the police. That is the case for Germany where no distinction is made between the members of the intelligence service in the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) and those in the Interior Ministry, as well as for Italy where the document does not identify which of the members of the Carabinieri were intelligence professionals. It is noticeable, however, that in three European countries the vast majority of delegates came from the intelligence services, the police and the Interior Ministry.

Figure 9.5

Distribution of the British delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005

Notes: The fact that the majority of delegates came from the intelligence services, police and the Home Office is somewhat misleading in the case of UK because it does not have a Justice Ministry comparable to the other G8 European countries. It is noticeable, however, that the police, members of the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and the Home Office, who made up 73 per cent of the delegation, were omnipresent.



Figure 9.6

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Distribution of the Russian delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005

Notes: By contrast, in the case of Russia the document clearly distinguishes between the members of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the others. In this regard, the presence of such intelligence practitioners in the Russian delegation is particularly striking.

Figure 9.7 Distribution of the Canadian delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 Notes: The presence of intelligence practitioners is less clear in the case of Canada. It should be noted, however, that although the list of Canadian delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group makes it possible to identify the members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) within the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC), it does not identify the intelligence practitioners, especially those in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) within the PPSC.

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Figure 9.8 Distribution of the Japanese delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 Notes: The same applies in the case of Japan where the structure of the National Police Agency makes it possible to clearly differentiate between the members of the police and the other delegates. On the other hand, members of the Japanese intelligence services, mainly the Public Security Intelligence Agency, belong to the Japanese Justice Ministry and appear under the heading of “Justice” in the document.

Figure 9.9 Distribution of the US delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group—2005 Notes: The structure of US institutions gives a major role to the Department of Justice; however, it should be stressed that the latter is very different to the Justice Ministries found in Europe and contains within it a number of features that are typically found in Interior Ministries and law enforcement services. It should also be noted that the structure of Homeland Security originally comprised professionals with an extremely broad range of interests, in particular transport, customs and the federal police.



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Figure 9.10 Distribution of all delegates to the Lyon/Roma Group by center of interest—2005

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Chapter 10

A Change of Priorities for the Lyon/Roma Group

The direction taken by the Lyon/Roma Group between 2002 and 2005 can be explained by the stranglehold the intelligence and law enforcement delegates had on the group’s activities in the wake of September 11. The change in direction led to the development of new G8 best practices and recommendations, which were disseminated just as effectively as they were during the earlier Lyon Group period examined in previous chapters (1995–2001). Did this boost the position of the G8 and its experts as purveyors of international norms? The Activities of the G8 and its Experts in the Aftermath of September 11 The recommendations on transnational organized crime which were revised by the Lyon Group during the presidencies of Canada and Italy and presented and approved at the 2002 meeting of G8 Justice and Interior Ministers (Appendix 2) marked the first stage in the reorientation of the Lyon Group towards terrorism-related issues. Compared with the 1996 version containing 40 recommendations, the revised version was much longer and far more detailed. The format of the recommendations was also changed. The new document took the form of a list of measures to be taken, which were grouped under five main headings: –– –– –– –– ––

Improving Domestic and International Capabilities; Enhancing International Cooperation; Strengthening Investigative Capabilities; Transnational Crime; Convergence of Terrorism and Other Transnational Crimes.

The spirit and main thrust of the 40 recommendations from 1996 were retained, in some cases with no changes, especially those relating to the areas identified earlier in Table 7.1, namely: –– –– –– ––

ensure recognition of transnational organized crime in criminal law; develop mutual legal assistance; make extradition procedures easier; protect witnesses;

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–– recognize specific offences; –– develop police cooperation. There were, nevertheless, some noticeable changes. Firstly, in the list of measures to be taken, the words “transnational organized crime” were always accompanied by “and terrorism.” The two issues were constantly linked and brought together, thus giving the impression that such measures would “kill two birds with one stone.” This confirms the frankly problematic view held by several of the actors interviewed as outlined in the previous chapter, namely that, even though terrorism and organized crime are not necessarily linked, strengthening the measures for combating transnational organized crime makes it possible for terrorism to be tackled at the same time because the means and methods used by terrorist groups are not, in their opinion, fundamentally different from those employed by criminal groups. The 2002 recommendations (Appendix 2) thus state the following: The G8 will conduct an urgent review of the manner in which terrorist organizations support their activities through the commission of other crimes (including, but not limited to, illegal drug trafficking, illicit trafficking in firearms, ammunition and explosives, and organized illegal migration) and, as required, develop strategies designed to disrupt and disable such activities. All States should increase their understanding of, and accordingly, strengthen their response to, the interaction between international terrorism and organized criminal activities, in particular, money laundering, illegal drug trafficking, use of illegal migration networks and illegal trafficking in firearms.

Secondly, close examination of the 2002 recommendations reveals significant additions to the 1996 text. These initially concerned the strengthening of investigative capabilities, in particular through the encouragement of combined and/or joint investigations and the use of DNA databases for law enforcement purposes. They also concerned the “targets” that were the subject of the recommendations: while the trafficking of drugs, firearms and human beings, high-tech crime, money laundering and corruption had already appeared in the 1996 version, several new issues were added to the 2002 text: –– –– –– ––

protection of children from sexual exploitation on the Internet; terrorist financing; fraud and other economic crimes; environmental crimes.

According to the information obtained, the only two issues that would seem to have nothing to do with terrorism but which traditionally fall within the province of transnational organized crime (child pornography and



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environmental crimes) were addressed only very obliquely by the Lyon/Roma Group between 2002 and 2005. No collective work of any kind was done on “environmental crimes,” for example. In the preamble to the recommendations, the latter were presented as “providing improvements to the mechanisms, procedures and networks that exist to protect our societies from transnational crime and terrorist threats. They are intended as commitments by the G8, and we commend these as inspiration to all States.” However, they have been used mainly to reformulate and reinforce certain priorities. The matters addressed by the Lyon/Roma Group between 2001 and 2005 indeed illustrate that priority was given largely to the prevention of terrorist attacks and the promotion of proactive tools for doing so. It was mainly under the presidency of France in 2003 that these new priorities were set in place. First of all, at the level of ministerial meetings, the official closing statement issued at the May 2003 meeting of the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers shows that the work of the Lyon/Roma Group experts was to focus on the following main areas as decided by the ministers: –– the use of biometric technologies; –– the protection of critical information infrastructures; –– improving the effectiveness of procedures for tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscating crime-related assets; –– the fight against child pornography; –– special investigative techniques; –– the sharing of DNA information between states. In response to the priorities set at the ministerial meeting, the activities of the Lyon/Roma Group during 2003 centered on: –– contributing to the work of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in the form of a declaration (G8 Roma and Lyon Groups’ Statement for ICAO on Biometric Applications for International Travel); –– developing best practices for network security, incident investigation and the reporting of cyber attacks; –– identifying 29 best practice principles on tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscating crime-related assets; –– drafting a statement of principles concerning the use and sharing of DNA information; –– a G8 strategy against sexual exploitation of children on the Internet, with the assistance of INTERPOL. The final section of the ministers’ statement entitled “Future work of the Roma and Lyon groups’ also listed the priority issues assigned to them:

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–– urgent examination of further ways and means for preventing terrorist acts; –– examination of ways to facilitate protection of critical information infrastructures; –– enhancement of law enforcement capabilities and the sharing of information between security and law enforcement authorities with regard to the prevention of terrorism within the framework of judicial cooperation; –– strengthening the statement of principles to protect asylum processes from abuse; –– examination of common measures governing the use of joint document advisers and of armed sky marshals. Lastly the experts were asked to report back on their work before the end of 2003. These priorities were confirmed in 2004 under the presidency of the USA, thus ensuring that the work of the Lyon/Roma Group would have a certain degree of continuity. That the fight against terrorism should have been made the top priority by the Sea Island Summit is hardly surprising, given that the United States was the direct victim of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The US presidency also witnessed the March 2004 attacks in Madrid, which further fueled calls for additional counter-terrorism measures within the G8, as this extract from the preamble to the May 2004 communiqué issued by the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers in Washington suggests: The enemies of freedom who perpetrated these acts [the Madrid bombings] will try to strike again. We therefore outline below a number of the steps we are taking to further protect the safety of our citizens. (Meeting of the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers, Washington, May 11, 2004)

At that meeting, the G8 ministers also adopted the following reports which had been prepared by the Lyon/Roma Group in relation to specific recommendations, all of which can be found on line on the G8 Research Group website: –– recovering proceeds of corruption; –– Statement of Principles to Protect Asylum Processes from Abuse by Persons involved in Terrorist Activities; –– Recommendations on Special Investigative Techniques and other Critical Measures for Combating Organized Crime and Terrorism; –– Recommendations for Sharing and Protecting National Security Intelligence Information in the Investigation and Prosecution of Terrorists and those who commit associated Offenses.



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It was also at the instigation of the US presidency that a fifth subgroup of the Lyon/Roma Group was set up: the SAFTI (Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative) Subgroup, the purpose of which was to improve coordination among the Eight on matters relating to the identification of documents and the use of armed sky marshals on planes. Under the US presidency, there was thus a more formal shift in the work of the Lyon/Roma Group towards terrorism-related matters, with transnational organized crime being relegated to second place. According to the interviews, there was definite continuity in the work of the Lyon/Roma Group between 2001 and 2005. Overall, its activities were not actually so very different from those of the Lyon Group prior to 2001, albeit with a greater focus on terrorism. The Migration Subgroup, on the other hand, saw its priorities redefined. Between 2001 and 2005, its work centered mainly on document protection and data-sharing (especially the use of personal data from passenger lists). As this European observer of the Migration Subgroup said, “the G8’s work on migration is more about law enforcement issues at borders. It is not the immigrant as such who is the subject. It’s more to do with documents (passports, etc) and procedures” (interview, February 2006, Brussels). With a few exceptions, the interviews provided very little information about the content of the Lyon/Roma Group’s work for the period 2001–2005 other than to reiterate the guiding principles that were set out in official documents and endorsed by the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers in May 2004. The main thrust of these public documents nevertheless suggests a G8 strategy that was increasingly preventive and proactive in its efforts to combat transnational organized crime and a fortiori terrorism. This is reminiscent of the increasing “technologization” of security described elsewhere by many scholars (Bauman 2000; Marx 2002; Ceyhan 2006), justification for which is regularly presented as being the insecurity of the present and uncertainty about the future (Bauman 2006). The constant focus on identifying known or potential criminals and/or terrorists (evident in documents such as those relating to asylum claims), improving the security of transportation and travel documents and strengthening police capabilities are certainly not new areas of work for the Lyon Group but they have definitely taken on a new lease of life within the restructured Lyon/Roma Group since September 11, 2001. As the preamble to the Lyon Group recommendations of 2002 states, States should ensure that their strategies for dealing with transnational crime and terrorism recognize their dynamic nature and are sufficiently flexible and innovative to respond to the constantly changing challenges they pose.

The 2002 recommendations, like those proffered in 1996, also laid stress on the driving role the G8 sought to play on the international stage: “We will keep under review the possibility of supplementing existing conventions and adopting new instruments, in response to developing needs in the fight against

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transnational organized crime and terrorism.” The use of such language as “supplementing” and “developing needs” is a good example of the G8 system’s desire to give impetus and wield influence which was examined earlier. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, this role was confirmed and stepped up but mainly in relation to terrorism issues. According to one of the Lyon/Roma Group actors, “[t]he G8 has taken up the leadership, now less so in relation to transnational crime than terrorism. But it is the leader when it comes to “new crimes,” such as cybercrime, where it has played a key role for the past decade, and child pornography on the internet” (interview, April 2005, Ottawa) and it has to be said that, from the information gathered and cross-checked, this seems to be true in a good many specific cases. The “Inspiration” Provided by the Lyon/Roma Group in the Post-September 11 Context The “inspiration” provided by the Lyon/Roma Group can thus be seen in the following international fora, the G8’s preferred fields of action: INTERPOL, the UN, the EU and also the FATF. Below are a few examples. As far as issues specifically related to transnational organized crime were concerned, initiatives on child pornography and high-tech crime were launched. According to some of the Lyon/Roma Group actors interviewed, the setting up of an international database of convicted pedophiles within INTERPOL stemmed from a proposal put forward by the Lyon/Roma Group and passed on at meetings of the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers. This initiative also seems to have led to close collaboration with the EU. As far as high tech crime was concerned, the subgroup of the Lyon/Roma Group devoted to the issue was one of the most active of all the subgroups in promoting its work at international level, especially at major conferences organized under the auspices of the G8. That was the case for the G8 conference on “Dialogue Between the Public Authorities and Private Sector On Security and Trust in Cyberspace,” held in Paris from May 15 to 17, 2000, and another held in Berlin in October of the same year. These two conferences led, in particular, to joint work between the G8 and the Council of Europe, resulting in the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime which was approved in November 2001 in Budapest. As far as issues more directly related to terrorism are concerned, within the UN, it was mainly the specialist agencies to whom the Lyon/Roma Group sought to provide guidance. Joint work was carried out with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and specific recommendations were also drawn up and submitted to it. One of the actors interviewed who participates in the SAFTI Subgroup said that the Lyon/Roma Group was also involved in drafting best practices with regard to the security of containers and port facilities for the International Maritime Organization (IMO) (interview,



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April 2005, Ottawa). Another, from the Intelligence Practitioners Subgroup, presented the Counter-Terrorism Action Group (CTAG), which was set up by the G8, as being the new hub of the international fight against terrorism (interview, February 2006, Paris). This group is particularly interesting because it has provided genuine coordination between the G8, the UN and the EU on counter-terrorism matters. It was first set up under the presidency of France at the Evian Summit of 2003 with the intention of promoting the provision of technical and operational assistance to the countries of the South to help them with capacity-building in the fight against terrorism. According to one of the actors interviewed, the French view that CTAG should be opened up to countries outside of the G8 prevailed over the US’s desire to retain the G8 format. The composition of CTAG was thus expanded to include experts from the G8 member countries, the European Commission, Australia, Switzerland and Spain, as well as representatives of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee (CCT) and the Director of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). CTAG meets under the G8 presidency on the fringes of the Lyon/Roma Group meetings. In the opinion of several of the actors interviewed, it has become an ideal place for coordinating international cooperation against terrorism. In particular, it allows best practices and ideas to be constantly shared and counter-terrorism norms to be circulated (interview, March 2007, Ottawa). As the new G8 recommendations of 2002 state, the need to tackle the financing of terrorism is also a crucial element of the G8’s stance in the postSeptember 11 context. Action to combat money laundering, which in the past had been approached exclusively from the perspective of combating drug trafficking, had already been broadened out during the 1990s to include other serious crimes which were grouped together under the general heading of “Transnational Organized Crime.” The attacks of September 11, 2001 led to a third shift: the refocusing of action against money laundering towards terrorist activities. From then on, the G8 continually encouraged the FATF to revise its recommendations accordingly. This also, once again, shows the strong ties between the FATF, the key figure in the drafting of international standards to combat money laundering, and the G8. In the chapter highlighting the Lyon Group’s complementarity strategy, it was pointed out that the Lyon Group had devoted little attention to money laundering on the grounds that FATF was already doing what was necessary in this regard. However, while the statements and end-of-summit communiqués may give the impression that the G8, and its expert group, had delegated its anti-laundering initiative to the FATF and were happy to just suggest additional measures from time to time, in fact the different levels of the G8 system were working in league with the FATF on these issues the whole time. There is also no doubt that it was the G7/8 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, and their own working group on financial crime, who set up most of the international

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networks for combating money laundering, ranging from the establishment of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) in 1998 (which are linked together through the Egmont Group) and the adoption of mechanisms for the reporting suspicious transactions (FINTRAC—Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center) to the creation of the Financial Stability Forum in 1999 and the involvement of International Financial Institutions (IFI), such as the IMF and the World Bank, in the fight against money laundering. It was also these same Finance Ministers who put forward recommendations in reports such as the so-called Fukuoka report (prepared for the Okinawa Summit in 2000) and the Rome report (prepared for the Genoa Summit in 2001) that were addressed to other discussion and action fora at international level. The FATF was therefore used extensively by the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to spread their message and foster international mobilization. In fact, the statements emanating from these meetings did not only support the work of the FATF but also made proposals about the direction it should take. For example, the Action Plan to Combat the Financing of Terrorism, which was adopted by ministers in the aftermath of the attacks of September  11, 2001, encouraged the FATF to adopt new recommendations on the financing of terrorism, prompting it to issue nine special recommendations on the topic (Statement of G7 Finance Ministers, October 6, 2001). The G8 Justice and Interior Ministers were similarly active in pushing for action on money laundering at international level and seeking to influence the direction it should take. For example, the proactive involvement of “gatekeepers” (lawyers, accountants, etc) in combating money laundering had been first envisaged at a meeting of the G8 Interior and Justice Ministers in 1999. The idea was taken up again the following year by the G7 Finance Ministers who asked the FATF to consider revising its 40 recommendations to take account of this issue. One year later it was included in the aforementioned nine special recommendations. So, even though the FATF may have acquired a certain degree of autonomy since it was set up, the G7/8 has unquestionably retained significant influence over it through its exchanges at ministerial level. In the case of the Lyon/Roma Group, even though its work was not supposed to duplicate that of the FATF, it was nevertheless meant to complement it and was presented as such. Right from the time of the Lyon Group’s initial recommendations in 1996 as well as in the revised version of 2002, while not intending to encroach on the activities of the FATF, the G8 experts nevertheless set out to provide additional expertise on matters related to the justice sector and law enforcement in certain areas, especially the sharing and exchange of best practices with regard to investigative methods and detection and surveillance systems for tracking the cross-border movement of capital, as well as the detection of financial networks connected with transnational organized crime and terrorism. Together the G8 ministerial groups (finance, justice and the interior) and expert groups thus comprise a set of actors who work not only in parallel but also in close collaboration with the FATF. The



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FATF is therefore extensively used by the G7/8 to promote its own norms and the complicity between the G7/8 and the FATF has been a significant driving force behind the establishment of this global anti-laundering system and the current international mobilization against the financing of terrorism (Scherrer 2006). It is, however, difficult to confirm that the G8 holds the leadership position claimed by the Lyon/Roma Group experts interviewed, given the multiplicity of international fora dealing with similar issues and, above all, the circulatory effect referred to earlier through which the influence of such knowledge and practices is multiplied. Nonetheless, it is clear that, in the context of the international fight against terrorism, the role of the G8 and its experts as purveyors of international norms has been boosted. That the G8 plays this leadership role, as asserted by the Lyon/Roma Group experts themselves, is in their view supported by several arguments, all of which converge around a single idea: effectiveness. The experts interviewed advanced two main arguments: on the one hand, that the G8 countries have weight and prestige when it comes to improving international cooperation and, on the other, that the G8 is an ideal position to ensure that information is circulated, thereby fostering multilateral exchanges. Those who took the first position pointed to the increase in expertise that accrues from coordinating eight significant countries; for example, one expert said, The G8 has helped to keep things moving where international cooperation is concerned, and the job is not yet done. The G8 is useful because it puts forward normative principles, normative courses [of action]. The countries in question are also the ones that have the greatest technological capabilities and so are able to develop coherent principles that can help other countries. (Interview, February 2006, Paris)

For the same expert, it is precisely this strength on the part of the G8 which makes it possible for common positions to be cemented: We talk mainly about best practices. What works, how it was done. It is always interesting to share: it gives ideas, it helps us to see whether we have understood the problems, so that we don’t make mistakes. It is not so much a question of being reassured as of telling oneself that we are doing a good job and that we are not mistaken about the dynamics. “Reassured” is perhaps not quite the right word but one needs to feel one is on the right track. It strengthens solidarity and our ability to share; the better we know each other, the better we can work together and the fewer misgivings we have about exchanging and sharing. That comes from having contact. The Lyon/ Roma Group helps bring that about. (Interview, February 2006, Paris)

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Another expert said, “If one starts from the principle that the G8 is not seeking to replace the UN or other international organizations that have a universal remit, then it is legitimate for eight important States to guide the actions of the international community. There is no encroachment of power” (interview, April 2003, Paris). The second argument portrays the G8 as being the only forum that allows dialogue to take place between countries or institutions that do not often meet at a multilateral level. The G8 is thus said to be “the only organized mechanism between the EU and the United States; it allows the United States to have messages passed on” (interview, February 2006, Paris). For another expert, “the G8 creates a bridge between the United States and the EU” (interview, March 2006, London). Another said that, “The G8 is one of the only frameworks that allows multilateral relations with the Americans. The United States does not devote much attention to the UN, for them it is easier to form partnerships, like those it has with the G8 countries. The G8 is good for that, too” (interview, February 2006, Paris). These experts give the impression that the G8 is the best forum for fostering multilateral cooperation, that it is the communication platform of choice, and moreover that it has matchless expertise at its disposal. While it may be an exaggeration to claim that the G8 and its experts have played a decisive role in the international mobilization against terrorism since 2001, it nevertheless has to be said that the G8 system has been fully involved in that mobilization. The two arguments put forward by the experts interviewed to account for the G8’s significant role in the issuing of international counter-terrorism guidelines, namely the excellence of its expertise and its privileged position, do not, however, address the delicate matter of whether it is legitimate for it to do so. Despite the following peremptory comment by one of the experts, “legitimacy is one thing, effectiveness is another” (interview, February 2006, Paris), to argue that the G8 is effective cannot take away from the fact that it does not have legitimate authority to influence the direction of international action and that it lacks transparency. The Question of the Legitimacy of the G8 and its Experts Many criticisms have been directed at the G8 by activists, campaigners, journalists, politicians and also academics. Among the most interesting, or at any rate the least caricatured, are those which stress the need to see the G8 as an important forum for providing international impetus but without, on the other hand, forgetting that its role within the international community is ambiguous. The norms developed by the G8 system, which are tantamount to international codes of conduct and permeate many international institutions, have included a certain number of recommendations with regard to the



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mobilization against transnational organized crime and, more recently, terrorism. However, one of the Lyon/Roma Group actors interviewed said the following in this regard: The G8 has a certain effectiveness within the United Nations but it only has this effectiveness as long as it remains completely opaque, invisible. There are positions which have been developed within the G8 but which, when they appear in UN negotiations, are made not to look at first sight like a G8 position, otherwise they would be rejected. (Interview, February 2006, Paris)

They would be “rejected” precisely because the G8 lacks representativity. They would also be rejected, above all, because of the kind of recommendations the G8 makes and disseminates. In the end, the attacks of September 11, 2001, the restructuring of the Lyon Group and the priority increasingly given to preventive and proactive strategies for dealing with transnational organized crime and terrorism have only bolstered and legitimized a climate of emergency, exception and suspicion. This climate, which has been convincingly analyzed elsewhere (see, for instance, the special issue of Cultures et Conflits, 58, 2005), is thus conducive to the introduction of coercive and proactive measures that play down the importance of safeguarding private life, data protection and habeas corpus. As some scholars have quite rightly pointed out, even though these measures did not come out of nothing in the context of post-September 11, we are nevertheless currently witnessing a routinization of violence and the provocation/repression cycle on a transnational scale, in the convergence of emergency practices that have already been tried out, in a discourse designed to stoke up fear by creating anxiety one moment and seeking to reassure the next and, lastly, in the widespread use of technology to monitor people who are on the move and to keep those who are profiled as undesirable or dangerous under surveillance. (Guittet and Perier 2005)

This kind of climate is manifestly evident in some of the ideas put forward in the best practices compiled by the Lyon/Roma Group, especially those concerning immigration and the right of asylum. The Statement of Principles to Protect Asylum Processes from Abuse by Persons involved in Terrorist Activities mentioned earlier, which the Lyon/Roma Group experts had been asked to prepare at the meeting of G8 Justice and Interior Ministers in 2003 and was later taken up at the meeting of G8 Justice and Interior Ministers in 2004, is a striking example of this. This statement of principles, which is focused on preventing abuse of the asylum processes by people involved in terrorist activities has considerably

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contributed to the increasing stigmatization of migrants and asylum-seekers, who are seen as “risky individuals” and thus part of what Didier Bigo has called the “security continuum.” Indeed, the outcome of these proactive and preventive strategies is the constitution […] of a security continuum which links terrorism, drugs, organized crime, urban uprisings, illegal immigration and the “social incivilities” of resident minorities. […] As a result of this new framework, it is no longer possible to think about how to tackle terrorism without referring to the fight against drugs and illegal immigration (and vice versa). (Bigo 2004, 56)

The Lyon/Roma Group document on asylum-seekers thus sets out seven principles that seek to improve data-sharing in order to ensure that asylumseekers are not terrorists or criminals “in disguise.” One of the seven principles in particular speaks volumes: while recognizing that information on asylumseekers is normally confidential, it nevertheless recommends that there should be exceptions, especially to enable information to be shared without the prior consent of the person in question. The stigmatization of migrants and the denial of their rights had, moreover, been perfectly evident in the activities of the G8’s Lyon Group from 1995 onwards, as mentioned earlier in connection with the negotiation of one of the additional protocols to the UN’s Palermo Convention on the smuggling of migrants. The sharing and exchange of data, the centralizing of such databases and the increased involvement of the intelligence services have thus gradually led to increased resolve to identify “risky individuals,” the development of methods of profiling that jeopardize the right to privacy and the emergence of prediction statistics that are as dubious as they are dangerous (Harcourt 2007). The conferences on cybercrime organized by the G8 as a prelude to the European Convention of 2000, which were prepared mainly by the High Tech Crime Subgroup, are a good illustration of the above. The numerous criticisms directed at the convention centered not so much on how it defined offences as on the powers it gave to search and seize data, as well as the obligations it imposed on internet service providers to pass on information. The harshest criticism came, in particular, from the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC). In the opinion of the human rights organizations within its networks, the draft convention contravened both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The Lyon/Roma Group’s focus on the securitization of travel documents, especially through the use of biometrics, has also led to the adoption of increasingly restrictive measures by the ICAO (Ceyhan 2006). The role played by the G7 Finance Ministers, the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers and, lastly,



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the Lyon/Roma Group in combating money laundering and, more recently, the financing of terrorism has been largely responsible for the introduction of practices that are detrimental to both the law and business, especially the proactive role that financial institutions and some of the liberal professions are now expected to play (Favarel-Garrigues et al. 2008). Before September 11, 2001, the involvement of the financial system in the prevention of money laundering had already created a number of problems, especially with regard to the banker-client relationship. For example, the fact that bankers were obliged to report suspicious transactions meant that the information banks held on clients was less protected. The post-September 11 shift away from tackling money laundering and towards combating the financing of terrorism has made matters worse, in particular by extending the measures in question to the lawyer-client relationship, flying in the face of not only the professional secrecy rule but also the right of all defendants to have a fair trial (Mitsilegas 2003b). These repeated attacks on fundamental rights in the post-September 11, context have been the subject of numerous critiques, many of which have brought to light the following paradox: the growth of illiberal practices in liberal regimes (Tsoukala 2006; Bigo and Tsoukala 2008.) The intention here is not so much to support those arguments as to validate the importance of seeing the G8 as one of the centers from which these controversial tools and methods have emerged. In fact, most of the criticisms, whether they have emanated from academics, NGOs or certain sections of the media, have concerned the direction in which the policies of national governments and international or regional organizations have gone and have hardly ever mentioned the role the G8 has played in pushing them in that direction. Only in very few cases are there the initial signs that the G8’s role as a purveyor of norms that are extremely worrying as far as respect for individual liberties and human rights is concerned has been grasped, the criticisms in question coming mainly from certain human rights organizations, including Statewatch and Human Rights Watch. For example, Human Rights Watch first wrote directly to the G8 Heads of State and Government shortly before the Kananaskis Summit in 2002 to express concern about the attacks on individual liberties being carried out in the G8 member countries in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as about arbitrary restrictions on the right of asylum and immigration (Letter to G8 leaders, recommendations for the G8 Summit, June 2002). The following year, prior to the Evian Summit, it sent a second letter, this time addressed to the French Prime Minister, in which it reiterated the same concerns but on this occasion referring directly to the Lyon/Roma Group and asking its experts to take account of human rights and refugee law (Letter to G8 leaders before Evianles-Bains, May 2003). A paper written by Tony Bunyan for Statewatch entitled “The exceptional and draconian become the norm. The emerging counterterrorism regime: G8 and EU plans for “special investigative techniques,” the

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use of “intelligence information” in court and new “preparatory” offences” also explicitly criticizes the G8’s proposals for combating terrorism as well as the influence they have had on European institutions (Bunyan 2005.) The imperative to combat terrorism has thus clearly left its imprint on the recommendations put forward by the Lyon/Roma Group. However, that does not mean to say the strengthening of the partnership between the Lyon Group and the Roma Group has been a zero-sum game of collaboration. On the contrary, the fact that the views of the law enforcement experts prevailed over those of the justice sector experts prompted very little discussion among the actors. As one of the experts from the Intelligence Practitioners Subgroup bluntly put it, “The G8 is not a human rights forum! OK, we’re nevertheless supposed to act in line with domestic legislation but it’s not up to us to deal with those matters. As for us, and we are the right ones to do it, we discuss how we can be effective, full stop” (interview, February 2006, Paris). So, according to this expert, this is not a time for caution and compliance with the rule of law but quite definitely for creating tools that can be put into practice without the question of whether or not they are legitimate compromising their development. Politics and a belief in urgency supplant the broader and more complex questions of the legality of the methods employed and their legitimacy. No challenging of the development of these proactive, preventive police and intelligence measures but a kind of race against the clock in the face of a protean enemy that comprises a mixture of organized crime, illegal immigration, cybercrime and terrorism.

Conclusion

As a result of this study, the thick veil of confidentiality that shields the G8 norm-making machinery from prying eyes has now been partially lifted. The reason for conducting such a study into the G8 and the way in which it has developed its expertise in combating transnational organized crime and, more recently, terrorism was to achieve a better understanding of how this hybrid forum, which is more or less informal and thus hard to define and pin down, operates. The main goal has been to piece together the role played by these famous G8 “experts” who every now and then get mentioned in official statements by going behind the scenes and visiting the debating and negotiating chambers that are assiduously shielded from the camera lens and the media spotlight. The working hypothesis has been that the G8’s discourse and expertise on combating transnational organized crime is mainly transmitted through G8 actors who work behind the scenes in discussion groups in order to produce expertise that carries the G8 label. Yet the official documents say nothing at all about what qualifies those individuals for that task. Nothing leaks out of their meetings. The Lyon Group is never mentioned in the press or the media in general. Discretion, confidentiality, secrecy. Three words that unquestionably sum up both the difficulties and challenges of conducting such a study. How indeed might it be possible to lift a corner of that thick veil of confidentiality that keeps the G8 norm-making machinery away from prying eyes? The difficulties are clear. However, by meeting with some of the Lyon Group experts and gaining limited access to various internal documents, it has been possible to at least partially unveil the world inhabited by the experts who are responsible for developing these kinds of regulations, regulations that are not enshrined in law and which certain theories of international relations call “international regimes.” Approaching the subject from the perspective of international political sociology, the intention has been to clarify as far as possible the impact that G8 discourses on transnational organized crime have had, as well as the practices that have grown out of them, by conducting an analysis of those who develop and promote them. Savoir-faire (knowing how to do), savoir-dire (knowing what to say) and faire-savoir (making it known): these three expressions succinctly sum up what the G8 experts do and the role they play on the international stage in combating transnational organized crime. The “best practices” and recommendations they develop together during their discussions are not norms in the legal sense of the term. However, we should have no illusions about the authority behind them or their normative scope. Though innocuous and not binding from the viewpoint of statute law, they are nevertheless dynamic regulatory

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instruments and most definitely the driving force behind the marked increase in norm production at international level. Their nature, dissemination and circulation all contribute to the homogenization of international rules in that they are quite clearly not legally binding and therefore very easy to export. G8 discourses on transnational organized crime have, like many other such discourses, thus helped to spread extremely simplistic, sometimes contradictory and always confusing images and representations of transnational organized crime and the tools used to oppose it. From this viewpoint, the use of expertise, in this case developed by state officials, has not only reinforced the rhetorical effects of a specific and questionable view of transnational organized crime but also served to justify the mechanisms through which norms are developed within the G8 and then disseminated on the international stage. In seeking to elucidate how the work of the experts is circulated and disseminated, this study has thus not only shown that many of the proposals put forward by the experts have been incorporated into official G8 communiqués but also confirmed the existence of a bottom-up approach, starting from the experts and moving up through the more official visible machinery, namely the ministerial meetings and the summits. By adopting a theoretical approach based on the sociology of the Lyon Group experts and relating it to the constructivist analysis of norms taken from the sphere of international relations, it has been possible to analyze the processes through which these norms have been developed and how they have been socialized. Indeed, by focusing on the socio-professional origins of these actors, the tangible aspects of their biographies and their professional and/ or personal development, it has been possible to discern common frames of reference that are conducive to achieving consensus, thereby enabling them to adopt joint positions with regard to what needs to be done to combat transnational organized crime and thus facilitate collective mobilization. In taking this approach, the intention here has not been to explain the rationale for the joint action of these actors but rather to reveal the points of convergence that exist between their perceptions of transnational organized crime and their views on how to combat it. These points of convergence do not prevent the experts from holding a broad range of views on the subject. Nevertheless, they are able to work together to achieve a consensus view that is intended to feed into the practices of member States as well as on to the international stage. The G8 therefore appears to have played an important role in the development of international regimes for combating transnational organized crime and also, more recently, terrorism, and forms of mobilization that should not be disregarded and whose importance should not be minimized have been set in place within its confines. Furthermore, most of the Lyon Group experts operate simultaneously within several arenas from which international norms emerge, within both the G8 itself and the UN, EU and the OECD, thereby aiding the circulation of know-how and practices. While such mobility is clearly not the sole prerogative of the G8 experts, this study has shed light on



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one of the many arenas in which such norms are developed and can be added to the body of past and future research that is striving to compile a complete map of all the international fora that produce norms, a map that is becoming ever more complex, given the increasing number of such international meeting places and the circulation processes to which they give rise. It thus appears to be essential for the influence wielded by the Lyon Group in its sphere of work to be taken into account when looking at the direction mobilization has taken and the international norms that have been established. Looking at the broader picture, the G8 played a full part in the web of international organizations that took up the issue of transnational organized crime during the 1990s (particularly the UN and EU) even though it lacked the formal status of the other organizations and had an extremely unusual and flexible structure. At the same time as reconstructing the genesis of international norms and the processes through which they emerge, it has been the intention in this study to highlight wherever possible the problematic nature of some of the measures that have been introduced to combat transnational organized crime and terrorism, and especially their consequences for fundamental freedoms and social cohesion. While a theoretical leap needs to be made, thus departing from a strictly legalistic approach, in order to comprehend the impact of these non-legal norms at international level, at the same time it is imperative to grasp the idea that it is precisely because they are pragmatic and operational measures, and not the product of discussions in which jurists have had the upper hand, that they need to be taken seriously. They comprise a whole array of best practices and recommendations that have been put forward by the law enforcement and intelligence services within these arenas, mainly with a view to ensuring that the supposedly overriding need for effectiveness when combating transnational organized crime and terrorism prevails over other trickier issues concerning respect for fundamental rights. An important part of the analysis has therefore been devoted to illustrating the tension that exists between what is presented in discourses as operational urgency and respect for individual rights. It is this same search for effectiveness that has served to justify the use of special investigative techniques, emergency procedures, biometrics and data exchange. In this regard, the socio-professional distribution of the Lyon Group experts, who are mainly officials working in law enforcement and intelligence, shows, especially in the post-September 11 context in which the group’s structures and priorities have been redefined, that, in these cosy and secluded international debating chambers, the pragmatic (and operational) realities of setting these tools in place have supplanted any other debate. In other words, operational urgency in the face of what are presented as global threats has made it possible for practices that were in the past seen as exceptional or at least used in moderation to be employed almost routinely or, quite simply, become the supposed norm. What is more, the most recent proposals developed by the G8 and its experts for combating terrorism, which

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are increasingly focused on finding ways to identify risky individuals, make the question of the legitimacy of the G8 and its experts an even more pressing issue. One area in particular will be examined below. Since 2006, in fact, one of the most striking features of the fight against terrorism and its prevention, at both G8 level and the international level generally, has been the increased attention given to migrants and immigrants, including second- and third-generation ones, and their potential radicalization, be it religious or political. The recommendations put forward by the G8 in 2004 for protecting asylum processes from abuse by persons involved in terrorist activities, which were mentioned earlier, had already indisputably stigmatized migrants and incorporated them into the security continuum. However, since the London bombings of 7 July 2005, which were carried out by British citizens who were the children of immigrants, there has been a shift in the G8 discourse on terrorism, with a return to the idea of the enemy within: the notorious “home grown terrorist,” the second- or third-generation immigrant who has been brought up in the host country, educated in democratic values and therefore far removed from the stereotypical Islamic fanatics trained in the Koranic schools of Pakistan. Addressing the question of the radicalization of specific communities on home soil was from then on said to be key to the prevention of terrorist attacks. In 2006, the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers made the following statement: The Ministers recognized the necessity to continue the analysis of factors, which might lead to the radicalization and recruitment of terrorists as well as the elaboration of measures to counter this phenomenon. They expressed favor towards developing an efficient set of preventive measures to counter terrorist propaganda and radicalization, terrorist recruiting and training, with special regard to specific environments such as prisons. (Chairman’s Summary of the Outcomes of the G8 Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial Meeting, Moscow, June 15–16, 2006)

This new focus on the radicalization of certain immigrant communities, especially those of the Moslem faith, was moreover confirmed in an interview in February 2006 with one of the Lyon/Roma Group actors, who said that the participants in the Intelligence Practitioners Subgroup were considering introducing measures to detect radicalization in prisons. In May 2007, the meeting of the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers held in Munich concentrated on the introduction of proactive and preventive measures to deal with members of their immigrant communities who might be tempted to become radicalized and turn into dangerous extremists or fanatics, in other words potential terrorists: We have therefore agreed to expand our knowledge and experience of those processes by which some residents of our countries become radical



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and violent, culminating in what is known as “home-grown terrorism.” We agree that lasting success in countering processes of radicalization cannot be achieved by the security authorities alone, but requires recourse to a broad spectrum of measures, including those related to integration policy and engaging civil society through outreach to youth and other vulnerable groups. […] Where integration is unsuccessful, migration becomes a problem for the cohesiveness and internal security of the host societies. (G8 Justice and Interior Ministers Meeting, Munich, May 23–25, 2007, Concluding Declaration)

Lastly, at the meeting of G8 Justice and Interior Ministers held in Tokyo in June 2008, it was agreed that one of the key issues to be considered when seeking to prevent terrorism was the integration of immigrants. In this respect, the G8 has not been alone in returning to a discourse founded on the notion of the “enemy within.” This approach has also gained currency in Europe, especially since the Madrid and London bombings of 2004 and 2005 respectively. Since those two events, all major statements on counter-terrorism have included the question of recruitment, which is linked in discourses to radicalization. In September 2005, the European Commission adopted a statement entitled “Combating Radicalization and Recruitment to Terrorism.” The coordinator of counter-terrorism in Europe, Gilles de Kerchove, also announced in Madrid in June 2008 that preventing the radicalization of certain sections of the population would be a priority in the years to come and went on to call for still further cooperation within the justice and law enforcement sectors: The events in Madrid were important for raising European awareness that not only might we be faced with terrorism from Pakistan or Afghanistan, which has now also spread to Iraq and more recently North Africa and the Sahel, but that at the same time we also had forms of radicalization among some young people in Europe, albeit only in small numbers, but which can be dangerous, and shift into violence and actual acts of terrorism. (Speech by Gilles de Kerchove, June 5, 2008)

Radicalization has thus become the buzz word when talking about the strategies used to recruit potential terrorists and a key concept in the prevention of terrorism at international level. In the case of the G8, all this goes to show yet again that it is within its most secret chambers that debates take place and fundamental decisions are made, a practice that gives rise to even more important and worrying questions. The extremely technical and pragmatic discussions about controlling asylum applications in which the Lyon/Roma Group experts engage, the ever-growing number of databases and the increasing levels of data exchange, coupled with the stigmatization of migrants and now also second- and third-generation immigrants, open up far broader issues and new agendas related to citizenship, integration and perhaps

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even identity. Yet the media make no mention of these most secret of G8 chambers. There is no one demonstrating outside these official G8 meetings. It is only when summits take place that the media and campaigners turn their attention to the G8. Hence, there is a need, without a shadow of doubt, for scholars to lay bare as carefully as possible at least a small fragment of the mantle of secrecy that enshrouds the G8 and its actors. For, when one looks behind the scenes of the staging of G8 Summits and discovers how the Lyon/Roma Group originally came into being, the way it has operated and the issues it has taken on, does not the Lyon/Roma Group, by exerting concealed influence while holding questionable authority, in fact operate just like any other clandestine group? A clandestine group which, though claiming to act on behalf of everyone, considers only the interests of a few while at the same time flouting democratic control and discussion processes. As a confidential mechanism within the G8 system, the Lyon Group stands as incontrovertible proof that the G8 is a centrifugal force within which international norms and exceptional procedures that infringe the most basic rules of democracy are discussed and agreed, and one which operates in absolute opacity.

Appendix 1

The Lyon Group’s Recommendations, 1996

P8 SENIOR EXPERTS GROUP 40 RECOMMENDATIONS TO COMBAT TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME Paris, April 1996 To combat Transnational Organized Crime efficiently members recommend the following: 1. States should review their laws governing criminal offences, jurisdiction, law enforcement powers and international cooperation, as well as their measures dealing with law enforcement training and crime prevention, to ensure that the special problems created by Transnational Organized Crime are effectively addressed. 2. With the aim of improving mutual assistance, States should, as needed, develop mutual legal assistance arrangements or treaties, and exercise flexibility in the execution of requests for mutual assistance. 3. States should, where feasible, render mutual assistance, notwithstanding the absence of dual criminality. 4. States developing mutual assistance treaties should ensure that the treaties: a) provide a clear description of the scope of the assistance available, b) encourage a speedy process of assistance, c) are as comprehensive as possible in terms of types of assistance available and, d) reflect the principle that evidence will be gathered in the manner sought by the requesting states, unless the procedures are contrary to the fundamental principles of the law of the Requested State. To further facilitate cooperation against Transnational Organized Crime, States should consider negotiating arrangements in areas that are not covered by Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties.

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5. States should establish a Central Authority which would be structured to provide speedy coordination of requests. The Central Authority should provide a quality control and prioritizing function for both incoming and outgoing requests to take into account both the seriousness of the offence and the urgency of the request. At the same time, the Central Authority should not be seen as an exclusive channel for assistance between States. Direct exchange of information between law enforcement agencies should be encouraged to the extent permitted by domestic laws or arrangements. 6. States should prepare and distribute to other States materials that would describe the channels of communication for mutual assistance and extradition and the process for obtaining such assistance from that State. 7. In cases where a criminal activity occurs in several countries, States with jurisdiction should coordinate their prosecutions and the use of mutual assistance measures in a strategic manner so as to be more efficient in the fight against transnational criminal groups. 8. States should be encouraged to develop, through treaties, arrangements and legislation, a network for extradition. States should modernise their extradition treaties by eliminating the lists of crimes and allowing for extradition of conduct punishable in both States by deprivation of liberty in excess of an agreed minimum period. States should make best efforts to ensure that their domestic arrangements for extradition are flexible enough to permit extradition to States of a different legal tradition. They should seek to identify and eliminate obstacles to extradition, including those that may arise from the differences between legal systems, by, for example, simplifying evidentiary and procedural requirements. 9. States should ensure that their domestic arrangements for extradition are as effective and expeditious as possible. States should also consider the possibility of extradition without a treaty. 10. If extradition of nationals is not permitted by the Requested State, and the extradition of one of its nationals is requested, the Requested State should: 1) allow for conditional extradition on the condition that it is only for trial and that its national be promptly returned after trial to its territory for service of any sentence within the limits of the law of the Requested State, or 2) allow for transfer/surrender, when it is permitted by domestic law, only for trail and on the condition that its national be promptly returned after trial to its territory for service of any sentence within the limits of the law of the Requested State, or



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3) apply the rule of “aut dedere, aut judicare” by, at the request of the Requesting State, submitting the case to its competent authorities in order that proceedings may be taken if they are considered appropriate. 11. States should promote other techniques for mutual education that will facilitate mutual assistance and extradition, such as language training, secondments and exchanges between personnel in Central Authorities or between executing and requesting agencies. Training courses, joint seminars and information exchange sessions should be encouraged on a bilateral, regional and world wide basis. 12. Consideration should also be given to posting in other States representatives of prosecuting agencies or of judicial authorities. 13. States should provide effective protection for individuals who have given or agreed to give information or evidence, or who participate or who have agreed to participate in an investigation or prosecution of an offence, and of the relatives and associates of those individuals who require protection, because of risk to the security of the person. 14. States should consider, as appropriate, reciprocal arrangements for the protection of witnesses and other endangered persons. 15. States should consider adopting appropriate measures to ensure the protection of witnesses during criminal proceedings. These might include such methods as testifying by telecommunications or limiting the disclosure of the address and identifying particulars of witnesses. Consideration should be given to the temporary transfer as witnesses of persons in custody enlargement of the admissibility of written statements, and the use of modern technology, such as video links, to overcome some of the current difficulties with obtaining the testimony of witnesses located outside the prosecuting State. 16. States should review their laws in order to ensure that abuses of modern technology that are deserving of criminal sanctions are criminalized and that problems with respect to jurisdiction, enforcement powers, investigation, training, crime prevention and international cooperation in respect of such abuses are effectively addressed. Liaison between law enforcement and prosecution personnel of different States should be improved, including the sharing of experience in addressing these problems. States should promote study in this area and negotiate arrangements and agreements to address the problem of technological crime and investigation. 17. States should take all other lawful steps available under domestic legislation, to ensure that they do not provide safe havens for criminals.

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18. We commend the work does by Interpol and World Customs Organization calling upon these organizations to maintain and develop their support for operational activity, facilitating as rapid as possible as exchange of information between law enforcement agencies. We call upon them to focus on a strategic overview of the methods of, and trends in, Transnational Organized Crime for the benefit of all their member countries. 19. In order to facilitate the work of law enforcement practitioners we will, on request, provide brief guides on our respective legal systems and on the mandates of relevant agencies. 20. States should identify within their existing structures central contact points for the purpose of facilitating contact between their operational agencies. It may be useful to locate these points in liaison with the Interpol National Central Bureau. 21. We stress the important contribution that liaison officers can make to the fight against Transnational Organized Crime. We encourage States to make the most effective use possible of their liaison officers in other countries and to consider additional postings. We stress the need for liaison officers to have access, in accordance with the law of the host country, to all agencies in that country with relevant responsibilities. 22. We reiterate our condemnation of drug trafficking which is a major source of finance for Transnational Organized Criminal Groups. Therefore, we: – reaffirm the importance of the three United Nations Conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988) which are fundamental to action against illicit drugs, call on all States to adopt and fully implement legislation in accordance with those conventions, – believe in the value of giving the widest publicity to information issued by official international bodies, such as the International Narcotic Control Board, on illicit drug production, trafficking and the proceeds of the illicit drug trade. – will work in all relevant fora to prevent the diversion of chemical precursors used in illicit drug production and take necessary steps to implement fully all relevant international agreements, – welcome and support implementation of the recommendations of United Nations International Drug control Program working group on maritime cooperation. 23. In order to ensure more effective transnational crime prevention, and foster public safety, we will develop strategies to identify and combat the illicit traffic in firearms. In furtherance of this goal, and in support of the specific



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recommendations contained in the May 1995 resolution from the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders and the July 1995 United Nationals Economic and Social Council resolution, we will, and encourage other States to, review existing firearms laws and regulations to facilitate discussion at an international level. We will promote information exchange among our relevant law enforcement authorities. We encourage States to enhance the exchange of information useful for law enforcement purposes (e.g., data for the identification of illicit firearms and specific information on tests conducted on firearms and ammunition which have been used in the course of criminal activities.). 24. States should ensure that immigration services play their part in the fight against Transnational Organized Crime. We note the involvement of Transnational Organized Crime in alien smuggling and call upon all States to enact legislation to criminalize such smuggling of persons. Immigration services and other agencies should: – exchange information on the transnational movement of organized criminals, – have as full as possible an exchange of information on forged and stolen documents used by traffickers – consider the most effective means for its communication. We will take necessary steps to improve the quality of our travel documents. We encourage other States to improve theirs and will assist them to do so. 25. We support the exchange of law enforcement expertise regarding scientific and technological developments such as advances in forensic sciences. 26. We emphasize the relevance and effectiveness of techniques such as electronic surveillance, undercover operations and controlled deliveries. We call upon States to review domestic arrangements for those techniques and to facilitate international cooperation in these fields, taking full account of human rights implications. We encourage States to exchange experiences of their use. 27. We emphasize the importance of giving the fullest possible protection to sensitive information received from other countries. The competent authorities of different States, should advise each other as to the requirements regarding the disclosure of information in the course of judicial and administrative proceedings, and discuss in advance potential difficulties arising from those requirements. A transmitting State may make conditions for the protection of sensitive information before deciding whether to transmit it. A receiving State must abide by the conditions agreed with the transmitting State.

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28. Building on current cooperative arrangements, the different agencies in our countries will develop their work together in specific law enforcement projects targeted on Transnational Organized Crime. We have formulated practical guidance on project-based action and commend this approach to all States. Project-based action involves bilateral multilateral priority setting, targeting, resourcing and assessment of law enforcement operations drawing on the strength of the full range of competent agencies. 29. We welcome the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering to resolve to extend criminalization of money laundering to other serious offences. 30. States should consider adopting legislative measures for the confiscation or seizure of illicit proceeds from drug trafficking and other serious offences, asset forfeiture, as required, and the availability of provisional arrangements, such as the freezing or seizing of assets, always with due respect for the interest of bona fide third parties. States should also consider the introduction of arrangements for the equitable sharing of such forfeited assets. 31. States should consider implementing measures to detect and monitor the physical transportation of cash and bearer negotiable instruments at the border, subject to strict safeguards to ensure proper use of information and without impeding in any way the freedom of legitimate capital movements. 32. States should adopt the necessary legislative and regulatory measures to combat corruption, establish standards of good governance and legitimate commercial and financial conduct, and develop cooperation mechanisms to curb corrupt practices. 33. We agree to share information on practical anti-money laundering techniques and to draw on the experience gained to adapt and improve national and international training activities in this area, in conjunction with the action of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering. 34. In order to improve understanding and information on the detection of financial networks linked to transnational organized crime (in particular investments by Transnational Organized Crime), we encourage States to take measures to gather financial information and, as much as possible, facilitate the exchange of such information, including exchanges between law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies. 35. We urge States to adhere to and fully implement existing relevant multilateral Conventions whose provisions effectively contribute to the



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fight against all forms of Transnational Organized Crime, in particular the Conventions concerning control of illicit drugs. 36. We will keep under review the possibility of supplementing existing conventions and adopting new instruments, in response to developing needs in the fight against Transnational Organized Crime. 37. We support and encourage the provision and reporting of clear and accessible information on adhesion to and implementation of the main conventions. 38. In order to avoid wasteful duplication and to ensure that limited resources are used to best effect, we urge International Organisations to coordinate their work programmes and to concentrate their efforts within their areas of competence on activities of practical value to member States. 39. We will work together in the governing bodies of International Organisations whenever possible, in order to give more coherent impetus and coordination to the fight against Transnational Organized Crime. 40. We will seek to ensure that all International Organisations that play and effective role in the fight against Transnational Organized Crime have adequate resources to fulfill their mandate. We will also examine possibilities for providing appropriate financial resources for specific, practical and viable projects developed by competent International Organisations.

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Appendix 2

G8 Recommendations on Transnational Crime, 2002

Preamble The following Recommendations are the result of a review of the G8 Recommendations to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, adopted in Lyon in 1996. The review was conducted by the G8 Senior Experts Group on Transnational Organized Crime (the Lyon Group), and was coordinated by the Italian and Canadian Presidencies. The following Recommendations comprise standards, principles, best practices, actions and relationships that the G8 view as providing improvements to the mechanisms, procedures and networks that exist to protect our societies from transnational crime and terrorist threats. They are intended as commitments by the G8, and we commend these as inspiration to all States. States should ensure that their strategies for dealing with transnational crime and terrorism recognize their dynamic nature and are sufficiently flexible and innovative to respond to the constantly changing challenges they pose. Part I: Improving Domestic and International Capabilities Section A: Reviewing and Updating 1. States should regularly review their laws governing criminal offences, jurisdiction, law enforcement powers and international cooperation, as well as their measures dealing with law enforcement training and crime prevention, to ensure that the special problems created by transnational organized crime and terrorism are effectively addressed. Details should be shared with the relevant agencies within the G8 and wider international community. Where obstacles are identified, States should seek ways to eliminate or reduce these obstacles, particularly with respect to extradition and mutual legal assistance. 2. States should seek to secure adequate resources to implement effectively all the measures described in these Recommendations. States should also seek ways to ensure the development of institutional expertise and continuity among personnel charged with combating transnational organized crime and terrorism.

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Section B: Adhering to International Standards and Outreach 1. We urge States to adhere to and fully implement existing relevant multilateral conventions whose provisions effectively contribute to the fight against all forms of transnational organized crime and terrorism, in particular the conventions concerning the control of illicit drugs, prevention and suppression of terrorist acts and their financing. We further encourage States to assess the implementation of such multilateral conventions. 2. We urge all States to promptly ratify and implement the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and urge all States to complete their internal processes to sign and ratify the Protocols thereto, as well as to mobilize and carefully target resources to fight organized crime through the assistance mechanisms foreseen by the Convention. 3. We will keep under review the possibility of supplementing existing conventions and adopting new instruments, in response to developing needs in the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism. 4. We support and encourage the provision and reporting of clear and accessible information on adherence to and implementation of the main conventions, particularly those that deal with transnational organized crime and terrorism. 5. In order to avoid wasteful duplication and to ensure that limited resources are used to best effect, we urge International Organizations to coordinate their work programmes and to concentrate their efforts within their areas of competence on activities of practical value to member States. 6. We will work together in the governing bodies of International Organizations whenever possible, in order to give more coherent impetus and coordination to the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism. 7. We will seek to ensure that all International Organizations that play a significant role in the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism have adequate resources to fulfil their mandate. We will also examine possibilities for providing appropriate financial resources for specific, practical and viable projects developed by competent International Organizations, and will work together to ensure proper coordination and consistency in these efforts.



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Part II: Enhancing International Cooperation Section A: Education and Exchanges 1. States should promote techniques for mutual education that will facilitate mutual assistance and extradition, such as language training, secondments and exchanges between personnel in Central Authorities or between executing and requesting agencies. Training courses, joint seminars and information exchange sessions should be encouraged on a bilateral, regional and worldwide basis. 2. We stress the important contribution that law enforcement liaison officers can make to the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism. We encourage States to make the most effective use possible of their liaison officers (both those they have sent to other countries and those whom they host) and to consider additional postings. We stress the need for liaison officers to have access, in accordance with the laws of the host State, to all agencies in that State with relevant responsibilities. 3. We underscore the important role of liaison magistrates or equivalent officials in effectively improving legal cooperation. Active consideration should be given to posting such representatives in other States. 4. In order to facilitate the effective law enforcement practice, we will, on request, provide brief guides on our respective legal systems and on the mandates of relevant agencies. Section B: Mutual Legal Assistance and Law Enforcement Channels 1. With the aim of improving mutual assistance, States should, as needed, develop new mutual legal assistance arrangements or treaties, ratify and promptly implement existing ones, and exercise flexibility in the execution of requests for mutual legal assistance, with a predisposition in favour of such cooperation. At the same time, the direct exchange of information between law enforcement agencies should be encouraged and strengthened to the greatest extent possible. 2. States should establish or maintain a Central Authority which would be structured to provide speedy coordination of requests. The Central Authority should provide a quality control and prioritizing function for both incoming and outgoing requests to take into account both the seriousness of the offence and the urgency of the request. At the same time, the Central Authority should not be seen as the exclusive channel for assistance between States. To the extent permitted by domestic laws or arrangements, the direct exchange of information and cooperation between law enforcement agencies should be encouraged, notably by designating contact points to facilitate cooperation. Meetings between

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5.

6.

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Central Authorities, on both a bilateral and multilateral basis, should be encouraged to streamline practices, taking into account the guidelines developed by the G8 in the field of mutual legal assistance. States should, where feasible, render mutual assistance, notwithstanding the absence of dual criminality. States developing mutual legal assistance treaties should ensure that the treaties: a) provide a clear description of the scope of the assistance available; b) encourage a speedy process of assistance, giving special priority in urgent cases; c) are as comprehensive as possible, in terms of the types of assistance available; and, d) reflect the principle that evidence will be gathered in the manner sought by the Requesting States, unless the procedures are contrary to the fundamental principles of the law of the Requested State. To the extent permitted by domestic law, States should provide information in their possession that is useful to another State’s investigation, even if a request for mutual legal assistance has not been received. To further facilitate cooperation against transnational organized crime and terrorism, States should consider negotiating arrangements in the areas that are not covered by mutual legal assistance treaties. States should ensure their ability to provide broad mutual legal assistance in respect of production of bank records. Mutual legal assistance should not be refused on the grounds of bank secrecy or that the request involves a fiscal offence. States should prepare and distribute to other States materials that would describe the channels of communication for mutual assistance and extradition and the process for obtaining such assistance from that State. Handbooks for use by all States should contain useful information on the different legal systems and cooperation and be widely circulated to practitioners. Such material, which should be regularly updated, should be maintained in an electronic format such that it can be readily accessible to other States. When law enforcement authorities become aware in the course of an investigation, prosecution or other judicial proceeding, that the criminal activity involved extends to other jurisdictions, they should communicate with the appropriate competent authorities in those other jurisdictions as soon as possible, with a view to coordinating efforts to effectively, efficiently and strategically investigate and prosecute those involved. States may establish joint investigative bodies through bilateral and multilateral agreements, and in the absence of such agreements, joint investigations may be undertaken on a case-by-case basis.



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9. We note that most criminal enterprises involve the movement of contraband, proceeds, information and persons across international borders. We call upon States to encourage customs, police and immigration authorities to work together, both domestically and internationally. Specifically, customs authorities and other agencies should: a) exchange information on smuggling techniques and trends, transportation routes, detection methods and the movement of organized crime members; b) exchange information on interdiction best practices; and, c) share training resources, risk management experience, border management practices and secure data communications capabilities. 10. States should identify within their existing structures central contact points for the purpose of facilitating contacts between their operational agencies and should regularly review and update lists of contact points. If necessary, States may wish to consider locating these points in liaison with the Interpol National Central Bureau. 11. We note the work done by Interpol, Europol and World Customs Organization, calling upon these organizations to maintain and develop their support for operational activity together with other relevant law enforcement organizations, facilitating as rapidly as possible, an exchange of information between law enforcement agencies. We call upon them to focus on a strategic overview of the methods of, and trends in, transnational organized crime and terrorism for the benefit of all their members. States should work with and support International Organizations in their roles in fighting transnational organized crime and terrorism for the benefit of all their membership countries. Section C: Extradition 1. States should take all possible steps to ensure that they do not provide safe havens for criminals. States should be encouraged to develop, through treaties, arrangements and legislation, a network for extradition. States should modernize their extradition treaties by eliminating the list of crimes and allowing for extradition for conduct punishable in both States by deprivation of liberty in excess of an agreed minimum period. States should make best efforts to ensure that their domestic legal arrangements for extradition are flexible enough to permit extradition to States of a different legal tradition. They should seek to identify and eliminate obstacles to extradition, including those that might arise from the differences between legal systems, by, for example, simplifying evidentiary and procedural requirements.

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2. Whenever possible, fugitives sought for serious crimes should be tried in the State in which the crime was committed, irrespective of their nationality. In those circumstances where the fugitive cannot be returned, such as where the extradition of nationals is not permitted by the Requested State, and the extradition of one of its nationals is requested, the Requested State should take one of the following actions: a) allow for conditional extradition or transfer/surrender on the condition that it is only for trial and that its national be promptly returned after trial to its territory for service of any sentence within the limits of the law of the Requested State, or b) apply the rule of “aut dedere aut judicare”, at the request of the Requesting State and in conformity with the guidelines developed by the G8, by submitting the case to its competent authorities in order that proceedings may be taken if they are considered appropriate. 3. States should use available legal bases to ensure that fugitives sought for serious crimes are apprehended and brought to justice. States should ensure that their domestic arrangements for extradition are as effective and expeditious as possible. States should also consider the possibility of providing extradition of fugitives for serious criminal offences, even if there is no treaty in force. Part III: Strengthening Investigative Capabilities Section A: Investigative Techniques 1. We support the exchange of law enforcement expertise regarding scientific and technological developments such as advances in forensic sciences. In particular, we encourage States to continue finding ways to identify more precisely those involved in crime, such as through the establishment of domestic and international DNA databases for law enforcement purposes, consistent with civil liberties and individual privacy. 2. We emphasize the relevance and effectiveness of special investigative techniques such as electronic or other forms of surveillance technology, undercover operations and controlled deliveries. We call upon States to review domestic arrangements for those techniques, also ensuring any necessary anonymity of undercover agents, and to conclude, when necessary, appropriate bilateral and multilateral agreements or arrangements for using the special investigative techniques in the context of cooperation at the international level, taking full account of human rights implications. In the absence of such agreements, States



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may decide to use such special investigative techniques on a case-bycase basis. We encourage States to exchange experiences of their use. 3. We emphasize the importance of giving the fullest possible protection to sensitive information received from other States. The competent authorities of different States should advise each other as to the requirements regarding the disclosure of information in the course of judicial and administrative proceedings, and discuss in advance potential difficulties arising from those requirements. A transmitting State may make conditions for the protection of sensitive information before deciding whether to transmit it. A receiving State must abide by the conditions agreed with the transmitting State. 4. Building on current cooperative arrangements, different agencies in our countries will develop their work together in specific law enforcement projects targeted on transnational organized crime and terrorism. We have formulated practical guidance on project-based action and commend this approach to all States. Project-based action involves bilateral multilateral priority setting, targeting, resourcing and assessing law enforcement operations which should draw on the strength of the full range of competent agencies. Section B: Protection and Cooperation of Witnesses and Other Participants in Criminal Proceedings 1. States should provide effective protection and, as appropriate, support for individuals who have given or agreed to give information or evidence, or who participate or who have agreed to participate in an investigation or prosecution of a transnational criminal offence, and for the relatives and associates of those individuals who require protection, because of risk to the security of the person. 2. States should consider, as appropriate, reciprocal arrangements for the protection of witnesses and other endangered persons. 3. States should consider adopting appropriate procedural measures to ensure the protection of witnesses during criminal proceedings. These might include such methods as testifying by telecommunications or limiting the disclosure of the address and identifying particulars of witnesses. Consideration should be given to the temporary transfer as witnesses of persons in custody, enlargement of the admissibility of written statements, and the use of modern technology, such as video links, to overcome some of the current difficulties with obtaining the testimony of witnesses located outside the prosecuting State in accordance with the guidelines developed by the G8. 4. States should also consider adopting appropriate measures to ensure the protection of participants in addition to witnesses in the criminal justice system, including judges, jury members, and prosecutors.

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5. States should consider providing for the possibility of mitigating punishment for an accused person who provides substantial cooperation in the investigation or prosecution of transnational crime. Part IV: Transnational Crime Section A: Drug Trafficking 1. We reiterate our condemnation of drug trafficking which is a source of finance for transnational organized criminal and terrorist groups. Therefore, we reaffirm the importance of the three United Nations Conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988) as well as of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which are all fundamental to action against illicit drugs, and the results of the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to the World Drug Problem held in June, 1998; call on all States to adopt and fully implement legislation in accordance with those conventions; believe in the value of giving the widest publicity to information issued by official international bodies, such as the International Narcotic Control Board, on illicit drug production, trafficking and the proceeds of the illicit drug trade; will work in all relevant fora to prevent the diversion of chemical precursors used in illicit drug production and take necessary steps to implement fully all relevant international agreements; welcome and support implementation of the recommendations of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme working group on maritime cooperation; will work towards the implementation of the measures agreed to in the political declaration and the action plans adopted at the United Nations Special Session and will strive to meet the targets those agreements set, especially the Action Plans against the production and trafficking of amphetamine-type stimulants, the control of precursor chemicals, the promotion of judicial cooperation and the countering of money laundering; and, reaffirm the conclusion of the Special Session that the problem of illicit drugs must be dealt with through a balanced approach incorporating demand reduction in a comprehensive strategy. 2. We commit ourselves and urge other States to support the efforts of major donors to the United Nations Drug Control Programme to coordinate counter-narcotics assistance in combating the drug trade. Section B: Trafficking in Firearms 1. We encourage States to complete their internal processes for determining whether to sign and ratify the United Nations Protocol Against the



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Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components and Ammunition, of the Transnational Organized Crime Convention. 2. In order to ensure more effective transnational crime prevention, and foster public safety, we will develop strategies to identify and combat the illicit traffic in firearms, explosives and destructive devices. We encourage other States to review existing firearms laws and regulations to ensure proper marking, and licensing or authorization of import and export of firearms, as well as appropriate measures to prevent illicit trafficking, and regulation of brokers of firearms. We will promote information exchange among our relevant law enforcement authorities. We encourage States to enhance the exchange of information useful for law enforcement purposes (e.g. data for the identification of illicitly trafficked firearms which have been used in crimes). Section C: Migration-Related Crimes 1. We note the involvement of transnational organized crime in human smuggling and trafficking and call upon all States to enact measures to combat these crimes and to cooperate fully at all levels. We support the signing, ratification, and implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its two protocols against the smuggling and trafficking of human beings as one of the means to accomplish this objective. 2. We encourage States to criminalize migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons. We call upon States to improve their border controls and travel and identity documents. Member States are encouraged to assist other States to improve their documents to comply with the standards and recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and to develop means to identify, seize and return to the issuing State, where appropriate, documents that are fraudulent or have been fraudulently used. 3. Law enforcement agencies, immigration services, passport issuing authorities and related agencies should cooperate against smugglers and traffickers, especially in the exchange of information on the transnational movement of organized criminals and other measures States may lawfully employ to apprehend smugglers and traffickers, to deny entry to criminals and the use of their territories for criminal activities, the establishment of mechanisms and agreements to affect this information exchange, and in criminal investigations. States should also ensure that these capabilities are effective in deterring and detecting movements of terrorists.

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Section D: High-Tech and Computer-Related Crimes 1. Computers and computer networks have increasingly become both the objects of terrorist and other criminal attacks, and the conduit through which terrorists and other criminals communicate in order to plan and carry out their destructive activities. Because many computer networks transcend international borders, it is essential that all countries have adequate substantive and procedural laws, and that they cooperate successfully to investigate, so as to prevent and punish terrorist and other criminal activities perpetuated with the aid of computers and computer networks. 2. States should review their laws in order to ensure that abuses of modern technology that are deserving of criminal sanctions are adequately criminalized and that problems with respect to jurisdiction, enforcement powers, investigation, training, crime prevention, and international cooperation in respect of such abuses are effectively addressed. 3. In undertaking this review, States should take into account and be guided by the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime (2001), the work of various International Organizations, and the work of the G8, including: Principles and Action Plan on High-Tech and Computer-Related Crime (1997); Principles on Transborder Access to Stored Computer Data (1999); Recommendations for Tracing Networked Communications Across National Borders in Terrorist and Criminal Investigations (2002); Principles on the Availability of Data Essential to Protecting Public Safety (2002); The Data Preservation Package consisting of the explanatory preamble, “Issues to be Considered in a Legal Framework for Data Preservation,” and “Law Enforcement Record Preservation Checklist” (2002); and, G8 Statement on Data Protection Regimes (2002). 4. States are encouraged to continue to work toward international solutions, including international agreements, to address high-tech crime. 5. We intend, and urge other States if entitled, to become Parties to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime (2001) and to ensure the full implementation of its terms as soon as possible, as it provides key measures to combat attacks on computer systems and measures providing for gathering electronic evidence of terrorism and other crimes. Other States should either seek to accede to the Convention or, at a minimum, ensure the availability of a legal framework approximating the measures called for in the Convention.



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6. States should take steps to prevent and deter high-tech crime, including: 7. cooperating with private industry in an endeavor to ensure that computer networks and communication systems are secure, and that adequate response mechanisms exist when those systems are attacked; enacting and implementing laws and other measures to ensure that intellectual property rights are appropriately protected against counterfeiting and piracy; identifying and minimizing potential problems posed by future developments in technology; and, raising public awareness with respect to high-tech crime issues. 8. States should support the acquisition of appropriate technologies and the continued development of their investigative and prosecutorial expertise and abilities, in order to pursue criminals who use computer technology to perpetrate their crimes. States should promote research and further examination of effective law enforcement techniques. 9. Liaison between law enforcement and prosecution personnel of different States should be improved, including the sharing of experience in addressing these problems. We commit ourselves to increasing the effectiveness of, and recruiting other States for participation in, the 24Hour Contacts for International High-Tech Crime. 10. Domestically and in providing international cooperation, States should maintain an appropriate balance between protecting the right to privacy, particularly given the threat of new technologies, and maintaining law enforcement’s capacities to protect public safety and other social values. In striking this balance, States should also consider the interests of the private sector. Section E: Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet 1. We encourage States to enact laws and implement measures to provide effective protection to children from all forms of sexual exploitation on the Internet. Particularly, States should ensure criminalization and effective investigative and cooperative capability in relation to Internet child pornography, in accordance with their obligations under relevant international instruments such as the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. States should also consider establishing strategies to tackle the “luring” of children over the Internet for the purpose of committing a sexual offence against them. 2. We further encourage States to explore means of expanding their information gathering and sharing capacities within and between G8 and other States in order to identify and locate victims, and to apprehend and prosecute criminals who sexually exploit children on the Internet, particularly by such mechanisms as child pornography databases (including an international database), and “cyber tip-lines” to which

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citizens can report incidences of sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. Such mechanisms should give due regard to the protection of privacy. 3. States should cooperate in the development of other practical tools, resources, techniques and training to help law enforcement prevent and combat the online sexual exploitation of children. States should also work with Internet service providers and non-governmental organisations to develop ways by which such organisations can assist law enforcement in their fight against the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. 4. To raise awareness of the G8’s commitment and ongoing efforts to prevent and combat the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet, States are encouraged to cooperate in the development of appropriate strategies to raise public awareness of these issues. Section F: Money Laundering, Related Terrorist Financing and Asset Forfeiture 1. States should implement effectively the 40 Recommendations on money laundering and the 8 Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). States should also share information on money laundering techniques and investigative methods and draw on their collective experience to enhance national and international training activities, including the provision of technical assistance to help other countries adopt FATF standards. 2. States should implement appropriate measures to detect and monitor movements across their borders of cash, appropriate negotiable instruments, and other appropriate transmissions of value, subject to strict safeguards to ensure proper use of information and without impeding in any way the freedom of legitimate capital movements. In this regard, States should consider subjecting cross-border physical transfers, above a given threshold, to verification, administrative monitoring, declaration or record keeping requirements. 3. States should consider adopting effective legislative measures for: the confiscation or seizure of illicit proceeds from, and instrumentalities of, drug trafficking, terrorism, and other serious offences; asset forfeiture, as required; and the availability of expeditious provisional arrangements, such as the freezing or seizing of assets, always with due respect for the interest of bona fide third parties. States should also consider the introduction of arrangements for the equitable sharing of such forfeited assets, as set forth in the guidelines developed by the G8. 4. In order to improve understanding and information on the detection of financial networks linked to transnational organized crime (in particular investments by transnational organized crime) and terrorism, we



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encourage States to take measures to gather financial information and, as much as possible, facilitate the exchange of such information, and exchanges between law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies, in particular for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting criminal offenses. Section G: Fraud and Other Economic Crimes 1. States should encourage the adequacy of a domestic legal, operational and international cooperation framework to effectively combat transnational fraud and other economic crimes. The G8 has launched various projects designed to, inter alia, develop best practices to combat specific forms of transnational economic crimes. The G8 will continue to carry out efforts in this regard, taking due regard to the work of other international and regional entities, including the Financial Action Task Force, Council of Europe, European Union, and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with a view towards developing best practices in responding to emerging forms of transnational crime. Section H: Corruption 1. States should cooperate towards the successful negotiation of a United Nations Convention against Corruption. 2. States should adopt effective legislative and regulatory measures to combat corruption, establish standards of good governance, promote legitimate commercial and financial conduct, and develop cooperation mechanisms to curb corrupt practices. To that end, States should also take into account international instruments, such as the OECD’s Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and other relevant recommendations adopted by the OECD. States should implement such measures and support the assessment of their implementation, where applicable, by relevant international evaluation mechanisms. States should encourage relevant business associations and other sectors of society to adopt voluntary codes of conduct to counter corrupt practices. Section I: Environmental Crimes 1. States should recognize the serious threats posed by environmental crimes. States should review their domestic legislation and enforcement policies, with a view to strengthening them where necessary. 2. States should provide effective international cooperation to combat these crimes.

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Part V: Convergence of Terrorism and Other Transnational Crimes 1. The G8 will conduct an urgent review of the manner in which terrorist organizations support their activities through the commission of other crimes (including, but not limited to, illegal drug trafficking, illicit trafficking in firearms, ammunition and explosives, and organized illegal migration) and, as required, develop strategies designed to disrupt and disable such activities. 2. All States should increase their understanding of, and accordingly, strengthen their response to, the interaction between international terrorism and organized criminal activities, in particular, money laundering, illegal drug trafficking, use of illegal migration networks and illegal trafficking in firearms.

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Index Abadinsky, H. 25–8 Anderson, M. 23, 32, 35, 45, 46 Anslinger, Harry 17, 18, 25 Bayne, Nicholas 7–11, 13, 40, 46, 114 Beare, M. 32, 38, 121 Becker, Howard 16, 17, 18 best practices 2, 64, 66–7, 71, 85, 87–90, 96, 101, 104, 108–9, 129, 131, 134–7, 139, 143, 145 Bigo, Didier 32, 35, 44, 77–8, 81, 83, 93, 120, 140, 141 Bourdieu, Pierre 57, 77 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros 43 Canada 4, 17, 36–8, 51, 54, 61–2, 67–9, 79, 92, 94, 110, 122, 125, 129 Carter, Jimmy 9, 18 China 9, 107 Cold War 10–12, 20, 22, 25, 30–31, 39–40, 46, 55 common values 90 complementarity 101 cooperation 2, 5, 7, 14, 15, 23, 41, 43–4, 46–7, 49, 51, 54–6, 63–7, 71–2, 75–84, 88–92, 97–9, 101, 108, 113, 118, 120–21, 130, 135, 137–8, 147 judicial 45, 72, 81–2, 84, 87, 95–6, 102, 109, 132 police 43, 45, 81, 87, 96–7, 102, 109, 130 corruption 4, 24–5, 28, 35, 37, 58, 68–9, 93, 102–3, 105, 130, 132 Council of Europe 43, 44, 104, 110, 134, 140 counter-summits see summits crime child pornography 130–31, 134 cyber 35, 64, 134, 140, 142 environmental 102–3, 130–31 fraud 24, 130 credit card 66–8 high-tech 54–5, 63, 64, 68, 70–72, 80, 89, 110, 102, 130, 134

pedophilia 66–8, 78, 109, 134 see also money laundering criminal justice 87, 89–92, 96 criminal groups/organizations Camorra 30, 37 Chinese Triads 29, 30 Hell’s Angels 29, 37 Mafia 25–31, 33, 37–9, 92, 94, 95 Albanian 30 Russian (mafya) 29–30, 39–42 Turkish (maffya) 30 Ndrangheta 30, 37 Sacra Corona Unita 37 Yakuzas 29, 30, 37–9, 94 Yardies 30 democracy/democratic 4, 8, 22, 31, 40–41, 43, 79, 99, 146, 148 Den Boer, M. 32, 35, 45 Dezalay, Yves 56, 57, 59 drug cartels 30 drugs 10, 13–23, 27–8, 32, 39, 43, 53, 93, 97, 102, 103, 114, 120, 130, 135, 140 control of 16 war on 15, 18–19, 21–3, 28 see also trafficking Dudouet, François-Xavier 15, 16, 18 Edelman Murray, 46, 53 European Commission 4, 52, 66, 84, 110, 122, 135, 147 European Council 81, 110 European Union (EU) 6, 23, 44–5, 52, 57–8, 67, 81, 83, 104, 110, 134–5, 138, 141, 144–5 expertise 5–6, 9, 49–60, 68, 73, 87, 89, 97, 121, 136–8, 143–4 experts 2, 3, 5, 14, 40, 47, 49–60, 61–3, 65–73, 75–6, 78, 82, 84, 87–90, 98, 101–4, 107–11, 113–16, 118–19, 121–2, 129, 131–2, 135–9, 141–7 extradition 44, 64, 72, 80, 81, 92, 96, 97, 102, 105, 115, 129

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Favarel-Garrigues, Gilles 14, 19, 32, 35, 39, 41, 98, 141 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 22, 27, 33 Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) 17, 25, 26 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) 14, 15, 19, 39, 51, 98, 102–3, 134–7 firearms see trafficking France 2, 4, 8, 10, 14, 17, 36–8, 51, 62, 68, 79, 92–3, 95, 110, 119, 122, 131, 135

Japan 10, 36, 37, 58, 62, 66, 68–9, 79, 92, 94, 110, 119, 122, 126 Johnson, Lyndon B. 26–8, 93 Johnson Commission 27, 93 judiciary 44, 46, 82

G7 7–14, 19, 20–23, 33, 36, 38–43, 45, 47, 61, 114, 118, 140 gambling 24, 28 Germany 8, 10, 17, 36–7, 62, 69, 79, 92–3, 95, 110, 122, 124 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry 8 globalization 8, 10–13, 19, 21, 30, 43, 45, 46, 78 Gorbachev, Mikhail 8, 9, 40

law enforcement 6, 17, 18, 22, 24, 62, 72, 76, 78, 81–2, 84, 87, 89–92, 95–6, 121, 126, 129–30, 132–3, 136, 142, 145, 147 legitimacy 1, 5, 10, 11, 13, 121, 138, 142, 146 Lyon Group 1–6, 40, 49, 51–60, 61–73, 75–4, 87–91, 95–9, 101–11, 113–19, 121–2, 129, 133, 135–6, 139–40, 142–5, 148 Lyon/Roma Group 113–27, 129–42, 146–8

Hague Convention of 1921 16, 17 Heads of State and Government 1, 8–9, 13, 47, 49–50, 52–5, 61, 70–71, 75, 90, 113–14, 119, 141 hegemony 11, 12 Henning 11 Hodges 11 Hong Kong 107 human rights 31, 55, 140, 141, 142 human trafficking see trafficking immigration 38, 62–3, 65–6, 139–41 illegal 35, 54, 69, 107–9, 140, 142 India 107 inflation 7, 10 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 131, 134, 140 international cooperation 41, 44–7, 49, 56, 65, 75–85, 88–9, 92, 96, 101, 113, 135, 137 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 9, 10, 88, 136 Internet 3, 67, 80, 130–31, 140 INTERPOL 66–7, 104, 109, 131, 134 Italy 36–7, 58, 62, 68, 79, 92, 94, 110, 119, 122, 124, 129

Kaufman, Irving 27–8 Kaufman Commission 28 Kefauver, Estes 2–8, 32, 33 Kefauver Committee 24–8, 32, 33 Kinzig, Jorg 93, 95, 96

media 1, 9, 13, 17, 24–5, 28–9, 31, 36–7, 41, 49, 95, 141, 143, 148 Mitsilegas, Valsamis 19, 46, 94, 141 Mitterrand, François 9, 13 mobilization 2, 5, 7, 15, 19, 28, 33, 35–6, 42, 45–6, 60, 68–9, 75–84, 103–4, 136–9, 144–5 money laundering 7–20, 21, 27, 35, 41–2, 47, 54, 58, 65, 81, 92, 97–8, 101–3, 105, 120, 130, 135–6, 141 Nadelmann, Ethan 15, 17, 18, 19 Naylor, R.T. 23, 32, 38, 120 Nixon, Richard 18, 27, 28 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 1, 55, 141 norms 5–6, 52, 56, 58, 73, 84, 87, 89–91, 94, 96, 98–9, 103, 105, 110–11, 129, 135, 137–8, 141, 143–5, 148 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 14, 15, 58, 103, 110, 144



Index

Organization of American States (OAS) 58, 110 P8 10, 39, 40, 42, 50, 61, 107 police 1, 18, 22–3, 25–7, 32–3, 37–8, 40–41, 43–6, 58, 62–3, 75, 77–9, 81–4, 87, 89, 92, 94–7, 102, 109, 115, 122–4, 126, 130, 133, 142 Putnam, Robert 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 114 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act 23, 27, 93 racketeering 24, 28 Rambouillet Declaration 7, 79 Reagan, Nancy 18 Reagan, Ronald 9, 15, 18–19, 22, 27–8 Reuter, Peter 15, 31, 32, 33 rhetoric 1, 15, 18–19, 22–3, 30, 42, 76, 78, 80, 83, 108, 118 Roma Group 113, 115–19, 122, 142 Russia 7–8, 10, 39–42, 50, 58, 66–7, 69, 79, 92, 96–8, 103, 110, 114, 122, 125 Schmidt, Helmut 8, 114 security 1, 7–8, 10, 17, 22, 30, 36, 41, 45, 53, 57, 75–81, 83, 113, 131–4, 140, 146–7 Senior Experts’ Group on Transnational Organized Crime 2, 42, 50, 52 September 11, 2001 see terrorism Shelley, L.I. 30, 40, 120 Sheptycki, J. 15, 22, 23, 32, 35, 95 sherpas 1, 9, 49, 50, 61, 70, 76 sous sherpas 76 Soviet Union 8–9, 11, 39, 40–41 stability 8, 12, 45, 76, 77 summits 1, 3, 4, 7–10, 11, 13, 21, 47, 49–50, 55, 61, 70, 72, 75–6, 110, 114–16, 118–19, 144, 148 terrorism 6, 8, 10, 70, 77, 79–80, 98, 113–15, 117–21, 129–30, 132–42, 143–7

187

counter- 6, 132, 135, 138, 141, 147 September 11, 2001 6, 63, 69, 111, 113–16, 118–19, 121–2, 129, 132–5, 139, 141, 145 terrorists 80, 113, 115, 118–20, 130–33, 135, 139, 140, 146–7 groups 120, 130 Red Army Faction (RAF) 8, 114 trafficking firearms 54, 63, 6–72, 80, 89, 97, 102, 106–7, 130 drugs 7, 10, 13–16, 20–23, 25, 27–8, 35, 39–40, 47, 67, 80–81, 97, 101–2, 130, 135 human beings 35, 54, 65, 69, 72, 101–102, 108–9 transparency 1, 138 unemployment 7, 21 United Kingdom (UK) 4, 8, 17, 36–7, 54, 62, 67–8, 70, 79, 91, 95, 110, 120, 122, 124 United Nations (UN) 6, 13–14, 16, 18, 21–3, 33, 35, 39, 43, 46, 50, 58, 63, 66, 68–9, 71, 81, 83, 102–10, 118–119, 134–5, 138, 139–40, 144–5 Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Convention) 63, 83, 105–9, 111, 119, 140 International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) 16 Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 16, 103, 135 United States (US) 8, 10, 15, 18–19, 22–3, 25–9, 33, 36–7, 57, 62, 66, 68, 79, 92, 105, 110, 113, 119, 122, 132, 138 Woodiwiss, Michael 17–18, 22–6, 28–9, 32, 35 World Bank 10, 88, 136 World Trade Organization (WTO) 11, 66

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