The Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC/TPB) and the Criminal Justice Sector and Rule of Law Working Group of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) hosted the Second Expert Group Meeting on Protecting and Using Intelligence Information in Rule of Law-Based, Criminal Justice Sector-Led Investigations and Prosecutions at the UNODC headquarters in Vienna, Austria on 7-8 July 2014.
This meeting served as follow-up to the First Expert Group Meeting, held in Frankfurt in January 2014, which discussed the implementation of Good Practice 6 of the GCTF Rabat Memorandum on Good Practices for Effective Counterterrorism Practice in the Criminal Justice Sector (Rabat Memorandum). Good Practice 6 of the Rabat Memorandum encourages GCTF members to enact measures to protect sensitive law enforcement and intelligence information in terrorism cases, and the Frankfurt meeting led to the development of draft recommendations on this matter.
The Second Expert Group Meeting in Vienna pursued the Frankfurt discussion and focused on the refinement of the above-mentioned recommendations in order to reach an ad referendum agreement. The recommendations were extensively debated and discussed by over forty criminal justice officials from the participating GCTF members, in addition to officials from Austria, Libya, Tunisia, as well as the Council of Europe, European External Action Service, European Police College, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe.
Participants provided detailed feedback on each draft recommendation, illustrated by comprehensive examples from their national legislation governing the use of intelligence, and highlighted challenges faced when using intelligence information as evidence in terrorism trials.
The final set of recommendations will be presented for adoption by the GCTF Coordinating Committee and Ministerial Plenary at its high-level meeting in September 2014 on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly.