[bestbits] Cybercrime, and the International venues for discussion of it

[Nick Ashton-Hart]

Dear all,

Given that there are references amongst the Internet Governance community from time to time suggesting that cybercrime is an ‘orphan issue’, and for those unfamiliar with the alphabet soup of UN agencies as regards criminal justice issues, there is an agency called the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). UNODC is one of the main venues where issues like cybercrime should be (and actually are) discussed, rather than ITU with its different mandate. Of course others like EUROPOL and INTERPOL are also very important.

UNODC have a report, the Comprehensive Study on Cybercrime that is really worth a read. In particular, Chapter 7 on international cooperation is particularly worth reading (it is a big document).

UNODC are also the secretariat of perhaps the most modern and comprehensive international agreement on transnational crime, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto.

For those of you interested in the view of the agency on human rights as it relates to its mandate, their view on that may be found here. 

It seems to me that for those of us at Plenipot emphasising (often) that there are venues where the Internet dimension of key issues like crime and child protection are discussed, and more to the point, the places they’re discussed actually have as a core part of their mandate to work on them. ITU should of course be involved and engaged, but they should not be leading, either formally or informally, for the simple reason that they don’t have either the mandate nor the expertise.

Of course, there are issues with respect to non-governmental engagement processes, but that to my mind is a separate issue, just as it is at ITU (which is not to trivialise the importance of that aspect of things at all).

Regards, Nick

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20141023/4b8b1ba6/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 670 bytes
Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20141023/4b8b1ba6/attachment.sig>