The Assessment Guide to the Criminal Justice Response to the Smuggling of Migrants was launched in the margins of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in the presence of the Permanent Representative to the Permanent Mission of Australia, Ambassador David Gordon Stuart, the Permanent Representative to the Permanent Mission of Indonesia, Ambassador Rachmat Budiman and the Head of the European Union Delegation, Ambassador Györgyi Margit Martin Zanathy, who participated in a panel discussion.
The Assessment Guide provides an inventory of measures for assessing the legislative, investigative, prosecutorial, judicial, and administrative responses to the smuggling of migrants by land, air, and sea, for deterring and combating such crime, and for integrating the information and experience gained from such assessment into successful national, regional, and international strategies.
Developed in close consultation with relevant experts, this Assessment Guide is designed in a flexible way so that it can be used both in places where a solid infrastructure for combating the smuggling of migrants exists, and in places with few or no such measures. Specifically, the Assessment Guide serves the following audiences and target-groups:
In addition to the importance of assessing and addressing the gaps in the criminal justice response to the smuggling of migrants, the panelists highlighted the need for evidence-based knowledge of the crime challenge in order to effectively tailor the criminal justice response. The Voluntary Reporting Mechanism on Migrant Smuggling and Related Conduct (VRS-MS) was presented as innovative tool developed by UNODC for this purpose. The VRS-MS, to be launched this year, is an internet based, secure system to collect, share and analyse non-nominal data on irregular migration and migrant smuggling within, from, through and into the Bali Process States. UNODC was accepted as a full member of the Bali Process on 1 April 2013.
The VRS-MS was developed with the support of the Government of Australia and the publication of the Assessment Guide to the Criminal Justice Response to Smuggling of Migrants was supported by the European Union .
- Transnational Organized Crime in East Asia and the Pacific - A Threat Assessment (TOCTA)
- VRS-MSRC and Bali Process Membership
UNODC Tools and Publications on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling