Expert Working Group Meeting on the Establishment of a Global Cooperation Network, Vienna, Austria, 9 - 10 November 2009

The Convention against Organized Crime includes several provisions on international cooperation, in particular articles 16-18 (Extradition, Transfer of sentenced persons, Mutual legal assistance). Since its first session, enhancing international cooperation and developing technical assistance to overcome difficulties identified in implementing the Convention was consistently part of the COP work programme; including through the establishment of an open-ended working group on international cooperation. The working group made several recommendations which were later adopted by the COP in its decisions and implemented by the Secretariat. These included activities such as organizing regional seminars, and establishing a directory of competent national authorities. In its work the Secretariat was supported by the Advisory Group on International Cooperation (See CTOC/COP/2008/5, of 12 August 2008).

During its fourth session, held in October 2008, the COP adopted Decision 4/2 in which it "encouraged central authorities for mutual legal assistance and the competent authorities for extradition requests to make full use of existing regional networks; and requested the Secretariat to provide its support to strengthening networking among authorities at the interregional level and to explore ways to facilitate communication and problem-solving among such authorities by considering the establishment of a discussion forum on a secure network and by ensuring the greatest possible participation by experts and practitioners in the relevant fields, by seeking funding for participation by experts from developing countries, in the deliberations of the working group at future sessions of the Conference;

As a first step towards the implementation of Decision 4/2, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its capacity as Secretariat of the Convention against Organized Crime, decided to organize an expert group meeting on ways to facilitate communication and problem-solving among such authorities by considering the establishment of a discussion forum on a secure network.

The purpose of the meeting is to identify how UNODC can most usefully develop a secure on-line forum and what form, functions and roles it should have; without repeating the functions of those regional networks that already exist. However, the meeting is not limited to the technicalities of establishing a network, and aims at discussing more widely means to strengthen cooperation among competent national authorities, by learning from the experience of existing networks, and identifying the gaps in terms of regional coverage and tools and methods of cooperation.

An Expert Group Meeting on the Establishment of a Global Cooperation Network, will be held in Vienna, Austria, from 9 to 10 November 2009.

The meeting will be held in C0343, on the 3rd floor, at the Vienna International Centre.

Document	Eng
Provisional agenda and annotations

Relevant documents:

Document	Eng
Concept note	pdf