Under the project on strengthening the legal regime against terrorism in Iraq, generously funded by the Government of Japan, the Terrorism Prevention Branch at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC/TPB) organized a national workshop on the international legal framework against terrorism and good practices to strengthen international cooperation in counter-terrorism cases in Baghdad from 5 to 6 July 2017. The main objective of this event was to support Iraqi judges who will be deployed to Mosul after its liberation from ISIL.
The training was attended by 30 trainee judges from Iraq, who benefitted from a wide range of expertise on the matter provided by UNODC/TPB experts. The opening of the training was attended by senior officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior, the Director General of the Judicial Institute of Iraq, the representative of the Embassy of Japan in Iraq, and representatives from the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.
The two-day workshop started with an overview of the universal legal framework against terrorism. Subsequently, the Iraqi legal framework to counter terrorism was discussed. The following topics were also extensively deliberated: (i) the international legal framework to counter the financing of terrorism; (ii) the challenges States face when addressing the threat of returning foreign terrorist fighters; (iii) substantive and procedural rules in responded terrorist acts and their impact on national criminal laws; and (iv) international judicial cooperation in terrorism related cases.
Both participants and experts expressed their satisfaction with the workshop and their wish that UNODC/TPB continues to implement similar specialized workshops in the future.