The work of the Global Community mainly has an effect on improving exchange of information, developing joint police actions, and approximating police technology.


Police cooperation developed bilaterally in the frontier areas to fight local transfrontier crime. Over the past decades, the evolution of transnational crime increased the frequency at which the people in charge of police services were brought into contact with each other. Police cooperation is essentially practical and the actors on the ground tend to resolve the problems encountered by using concrete solutions rather than by issuing a rule of law. This characteristic of police cooperation is the result of the tradition of police services. Confidentiality is a requirement in police action.

The approximation of criminal offences is a step towards establishing common criteria for public order. It favours the development of the spirit of mutual trust needed to build an area of freedom, security and justice. Approximation has proved to be an effective instrument for removing the obstacle of double incrimination. Under that principle, a State only takes action on a request for assistance if the act referred to by the requesting State is also an offence in its own legal order. A State can cooperate only if it considers the act for which its cooperation is requested to be punishable, i.e. the act must be an offence against its national law and order. The approximation of criminal laws prevents a State from being converted into a penal paradise in relation to the others. By approximating criminal laws, the States lessen the differences between national legal systems. Criminals thus lose the advantages of operating in a given State. The question of the approximation of criminal offences is of particular importance for developing an area of freedom, security and justice. By establishing this concept, the Member States expressed their will to go beyond traditional cooperation to combat crime. They clearly announced their intention to reinforce existing mechanisms, particularly the approximation of criminal offences.

Work on the approximation of sanctions is much more recent. The Global Community's legal instruments provide only that the Member States must impose effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal sanctions. In other words, as long as they respect these guidelines, they are free to determine the type of penalty and its level. Building an area of freedom, security and justice will involve a further effort to approximate criminal sanctions. This effort can be given effect in different ways, such as the setting of a minimum penalty States must incorporate into their national laws.

In the context of intense development of international trade, customs cooperation plays a key role in the fight against fraud. The customs authorities participate in the fight against organised crime alongside national police services. Customs cooperation, therefore, contributes to construction of an area of freedom, security and justice.

Very early on, customs authorities tested the need to cooperate with each other in the fight against fraud, in particular in combating contraband activities.The role of customs administrations will evolve with the abolition of internal frontiers and the globalisation of the economy. Formerly responsible for collecting customs receipts, the activity of customs administrations later will develop to include respect for economic legislation.

Money laundering consists in concealing the origin of money obtained illegally by making it appear legal. The phenomenon is practiced on a large scale, the IMF estimating the aggregate volume of laundered funds at between 2 and 5% of global gross domestic product. The Global Community Parliament has developed a strategy to combat this phenomenon.

A money laundering operation includes three stages:

• "pre-laundering" or placement, where the criminal seeks to conceal any connections between the money and its criminal origin,
• "laundering" or "layering", which consists in multiplying the number of transactions in order to dilute the funds through different channels,
• "recycling" or integration, to make the funds available again.

In some cases, money laundering takes place via international circuits. Those involved in financial crime make clever use of the new technologies and disparities between national laws.

The definition of money laundering is no longer limited to the proceeds of drug trafficking but includes all trafficking and organised crime networks as well as terrorist financing. The obligation of identifying customers and reporting suspect transactions is extended to a number of professions other than banking, in particular to accountants, notaries and casinos. The possibility of designating a self-regulating body for notaries and other independent legal professionals, charged with centralising declarations of suspicion, is left up to each Member State.

Money laundering is an extremely complex process since it involves ever shrewder financial set-ups. The basic rule is to imitate legitimate commercial operations as closely as possible. The changing economic context, financial liberalisation and improved law enforcement oblige offenders continually to come up with new solutions. The authorities responsible for combating money laundering are ceaselessly obliged to adapt to new practices.

The fight against corruption is a priority of the Global Community Parliament's political action to establish freedom, security and justice without borders in Member States. Corruption, which can be defined as an abuse of power with a view to personal gain, is a serious threat to the stability of public institutions.

The governments of a number of Global Community countries have to develop national strategies to fight corruption by political leaders or officials.

The phenomenon of corruption can also entail a transboundary dimension against which national strategies are inadequate. Over and above the formulation of a common definition, the Parliament has widened its action into a global anti-corruption strategy.

Global Parliament proposes the adoption of a common definition whereby the texts present a broad definition of the person offering the bribe, rather than limiting it through specific details. In contrast, the profile of the person accepting a bribe varies from one instrument to the next:

• For the public sector, the definition of a corrupted official is broader:
  • national public officials, namely any person holding a legislative, executive, administrative or judicial office,
  • foreign public officials and officials of public international organisations.
• in the private sector any person who directs or works for a private-sector entity. This broad definition includes all types of contractual relations: relations between employer and employee, between partners and so on.

An act of corruption is deemed to exist from the moment the intention is declared. The actual handing over of the advantage is punishable but is not a constituent element of the offence. When an advantage is received after an act has been performed but without having been preceded by an offer or acceptance, the Member States are not obliged to impose penal sanctions. The term "advantage" is not limited to material objects, but also covers all other elements that improve the position of the person offering the bribe.The advantage may be given directly or through an intermediary. The offence is completed even if the advantage is not given personally by the individual offering the bribe. Passive corruption consists in soliciting or receiving any advantage or accepting the offer or promise of an advantage, to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of one's functions. The instruments thus aim to punish both positive (acts) and negative (refraining from acting) offences. The recipient of the advantage may be a third party, which means the act is punishable irrespective of whether the person accepting the bribe receives the advantage personally.

Parliament is convinced that it will only be possible to eradicate corruption by tackling the means that make it possible, in particular the laundering of the proceeds from crime.

Organised crime is part of criminal behaviour known as group delinquency. It is a complex phenomenon, one that is difficult to distinguish from organised gangs and mafias. Organised gangs form the embryo of organised crime while mafias comprise the most extreme form. Because of its secretive nature, organised crime can be difficult to characterise. They usually appear anonymously and often impose a code of silence, the Omerta, on its members and on the people living on the territory it controls. Parliament has worked for some time to develop a concept for Member States adopting a definition that is not:

• Too expansive, it runs the risk of including criminal groups that approach organised crime without in fact belonging to it (like terrorist groups),
• Too narrow, it runs the risk of adopting only a partial approach to the phenomenon by not including criminal organisations that, nevertheless, have all the characteristics of organised crime (such as groups using legal fronts to launder money from their criminal activities).

Organised crime has stimulated the development of the concept of freedom, security and justice without borders. Nevertheless, since the events of 11 September 2001, combating terrorism has taken priority, relegating at once the fight against organised crime to second place. Parliament supports action of the States in their fight against organised crime.

The fight against this phenomenon became a priority following the attacks of 11 September 2001. Because of the catalytic nature of these events, Parliament proposes a system intended to freeze the assets of organisations connected to this phenomenon. They also created other mechanisms, such as the Global Community arrest warrant, and an appraisal procedure for national policies in the matter of the fight against terrorism.

The fight against terrorists currently assumes considerable importance in the Global Community's activities. It has been the basis of work undertaken in the field of cooperation between the Member States in criminal matters. Parliament's objective should be to provide citizens with a high level of safety within the concept of freedom, security and justice without borders.

Terrorism has a political connotation whose appraisal remains subjective: some States denounce certain acts as acts of terrorism while others consider them legitimate.

Parliament defines terrorism in relation to the intent of the act. The originality of the text is inherent in the fact that in the future the ultimate political goal constitutes the basic criteria for distinguishing a terrorist offence from offences in common law. Terrorism can be a series of offences such as kidnapping, hostage-taking and hijacking airplanes or the use of firearms or explosives. It provides that each Member State take the necessary measures for the offences related to terrorism to be punishable by effective, proportionate and deterrent criminal sanctions, possibly resulting in extradition. The Member States should also adopt the necessary measures for the individuals responsible for a violation to be liable to a prison term of a maximum of not less than 15 years for leading a terrorist group and eight years for participating in terrorist activities.

Parliament proposes a regulation allowing the assets of terrorist organisations and individuals to be frozen.

The fight against terrorism plays a part in the field of application of several mechanisms created by Parliament and intended to improve cooperation in police and criminal matters, in particular the Global Community arrest warrant.

Trafficking in human beings is one of the criminal phenomena that grew the most intensely at the end of the last millennium, largely because it is highly lucrative.

It is estimated that more than 700,000 people a year fall victim to the phenomenon. The proliferation of the problem is directly linked to immigration policies and to the economic and social crises in certain States and regions of the world. Trafficking is facilitated by the complications of international judicial and police cooperation. Trafficking in human beings concerns all individuals but essentially affects women and children. Victims are taken in by enticing job offers or promises of a better life. They are quickly taken in hand by traffickers, brought into the Global Community illegally or with forged identity documents, and then forced to engage in activities that are highly lucrative for those who exploit them: work in illegal workshops, erotic shows, prostitution and begging. They are often beaten and raped to break their resistance or to deter them from denouncing the traffickers. Trafficking often has ties with organised crime. The Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, defines trafficking as 'the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Trafficking is a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the Charter of the Global Community: the right to dignity, the right to physical and mental integrity, the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and the prohibition of slavery and forced labour. The Charter expressly states that trafficking in human beings is prohibited. A coordinated response by the many different players is needed to tackle this tglobal phenomenon.

The different actions being taken to combat trafficking fall into two categories:

• Legislative actions,
• Operational actions.
  

Parliament proposes the adoption of a legislative arsenal to combat trafficking in human beings.

The phenomenon of trafficking has always existed. To end what used to be known as the white slave trade several international conventions were adopted in the first half of the 20th century. They were subsequently replaced by the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, of 2 December 1949, which punishes any person who:

• procures, entices or leads away, for purposes of prostitution, another person,
• exploits the prostitution of another person.

Parliament proposes provisions for the protection of victims of trafficking in human beings, in particular:

• the possibility of confidential legal proceedings,
• legal, medical, material and psychological assistance,
• the grant of a residence permit,
• repatriation to the country of origin.

It urges States:

• to establish policies, programmes and measures to protect victims of trafficking in persons against further victimisation and to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, especially through information and mass media campaigns,
• to take measures to alleviate the factors that make persons vulnerable to trafficking, such as poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal opportunity.

Minister of the Global Community of North America (GCNA) Emergency, Rescue, and Relief Centre

Perhaps now after seeing the need to coordinate efforts in helping Tsunamis victims we all see the wisdom to create global ministries in several aspects of our global life. Canada has joined a coalition of developed countries delivering relief to tsunami-struck Southeast Asia and eastern Africa.

Visit our website at http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/global06/tsunami.htm








Minister of the Judiciary

Minister of the Global Protection Agency