On 12 February 2016, UNODC Executive Director, Yury Fedotov, warmly welcomed Italy's achievements in the ' Glauco 1' case in which the "investigation and subsequent guilty verdicts send a powerful signal to every country that migrant smuggling laws must not only be adopted, but also forcefully applied against criminals".
The court decision will be included in the Case Law Database on Smuggling of Migrants, which is under development as a part of the wider SHERLOC initiative. The Case Law Database on Smuggling of Migrants aims to address the continued lack of prosecutions for migrant smugglers through improving knowledge of global prosecution practices and anti-migrant smuggling legislation. Making this landmark case available to the broader criminal justice community will inform and guide, where necessary, investigations and prosecutions of migrant smuggling cases in other jurisdictions.
UNODC seeks to collect more such cases and identify partners to help with analysing and translating case law to serve this purpose.
On 14 and 15 December UNODC organised an Expert Group Meeting in order to gather the suggestions of experts and practitioners over the development of the Case Law Database on Smuggling of Migrants.
Participants in the Expert Group Meeting included prosecutors from Italy and Slovakia, academics from the universities of Oxford and Queensland, as well as representatives from Eurojust and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE).
Particular focus was placed on the need to expand the network of contributors for case collection, encourage cooperation with existing initiatives such as the University of Queensland Migrant Smuggling Database, as well as discussion of methodological issues. The meeting of experts also provided the opportunity for participants to share expertise and experience on related topics and examples of good practice in collecting and analysing case law, with a focus on smuggling of migrants.
The participants were invited to continue working with UNODC in order to provide ongoing support and advice on the further development of the database, including to build up networks and partnerships with various actors as well as with promotion and dissemination of the database.
You can consult migrant smuggling-related case law via SHERLOC.
For further information please contact:
Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section, htmss AT unodc DOT org