Strengthening the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, in Particular Its Technical Cooperation Capacity

A/RES/68/193View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 108 Crime prevention and criminal justice, published in 2014.

What other versions does this mandate have?

24 versions · 1999–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/229

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/229	Strengthening the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, in particular its technical cooperation capacity	14,275	61%Compare
2023	A/RES/78/229	Strengthening the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme, in particular its technical cooperation capacity	14,720	81%Compare
2023	A/RES/77/237	Strengthening the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, in particular its technical cooperation capacity	12,938	87%Compare
2022	A/RES/76/187	Strengthening the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, in particular its technical cooperation capacity	12,100	86%Compare
2020	A/RES/75/196	Strengthening the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, in particular its technical cooperation capacity	11,510	94%Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

23 reports · 2004–2026

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2026	A/81/98	Implementation of the mandates of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, with particular reference to the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/80/229
2025	A/80/157	Implementation of the mandates of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, with particular reference to the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/78/229
2024	A/79/225	Implementation of the mandates of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, with particular reference to the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/78/229
2023	A/78/264	Implementation of the mandates of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, with particular reference to the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/77/237
2022	A/77/127	Implementation of the mandates of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, with particular reference to the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/76/187

What subjects does this mandate have?

12 subjects

Corruption Counter-Terrorism Crime Prevention Criminal Justice Drug Traffic International Cooperation Law Enforcement Organized Crime Technical Cooperation Terrorism Transnational Crime Trust Funds

What’s in this document?

50 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General prepared pursuant to resolutions 64/293, 67/186, 67/189, 67/190 and 67/192;¹⁵

¹⁵A/68/127.

Reaffirms that the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols theretoError: Reference source not found represent the most important tools of the international community to fight transnational organized crime;

Notes with appreciation that the number of States parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime has reached 179, which is a significant indication of the commitment shown by the international community to combat transnational organized crime;

Urges Member States that have not yet done so to consider ratifying or acceding to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 as amended by the 1972 Protocol,Error: Reference source not found the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971,Error: Reference source not found the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988,Error: Reference source not found the United Nations Convention against CorruptionError: Reference source not found and the international conventions and protocols related to terrorism, and urges States parties to those conventions and protocols to make efforts towards their full implementation;

Reiterates the need for the establishment of, inter alia, a transparent, efficient, non-intrusive, inclusive and impartial mechanism for the review of the implementation of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto, aimed at assisting States parties in the full and effective application of those instruments, and, bearing in mind the urgent need to improve the implementation of the Convention and the Protocols thereto, invites Member States to continue the dialogue regarding the establishment of such a mechanism, particularly in view of the holding of the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime in 2014;

Notes with appreciation the work of the open-ended intergovernmental expert group to conduct a comprehensive study of the problem of cybercrime and responses to it by Member States, the international community and the private sector, including the exchange of information on national legislation, best practices, technical assistance and international cooperation, with a view to examining options to strengthen existing and to propose new national and international, legal or other responses to cybercrime, and encourages the expert group to enhance its efforts to complete its work and to present the outcome of the study to the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in due course;

Reaffirms the importance of the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme in promoting effective action to strengthen international cooperation in crime prevention and criminal justice, as well as of the work of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in the fulfilment of its mandate in crime prevention and criminal justice, including providing to Member States, upon request and as a matter of high priority, technical cooperation, advisory services and other forms of assistance, and coordinating with and complementing the work of all relevant and competent United Nations bodies and offices;

Underscores that the post-2015 development agenda should be guided by respect for and promotion of the rule of law, and that crime prevention and criminal justice have an important role in that regard;

Recommends that Member States, as appropriate to their national contexts, adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach to crime prevention and criminal justice reform, based on baseline assessments and data collection and focusing on all sectors of the justice system, and develop crime prevention policies, strategies and programmes, including those that focus on early prevention by using multi-disciplinary and participatory approaches, in close cooperation with all stakeholders, including civil society, and requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to provide technical assistance, upon request, to Member States for this purpose;

Encourages all States to have national and local action plans for crime prevention in order to take into account, in a comprehensive, integrated and participatory manner, inter alia, factors that place certain populations and places at higher risk of victimization and/or of offending and to ensure that such plans are based on the best available evidence and good practices, and stresses that crime prevention should be considered an integral element of strategies to foster social and economic development in all States;

Calls upon Member States to strengthen their efforts to cooperate, as appropriate, at the bilateral, subregional, regional and international levels to counter transnational organized crime effectively;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to enhance its efforts, within existing resources and within its mandate, in providing technical assistance and advisory services for the implementation of its regional and subregional programmes in a coordinated manner with relevant Member States and regional and subregional organizations;

Also requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to provide, within its mandate, technical assistance to Member States, upon their request, in the areas of crime prevention and criminal justice, with a view to strengthening the capacity of national criminal justice systems to investigate, prosecute and punish all forms of crime, while protecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of defendants, as well as the legitimate interests of victims and witnesses, and to ensure access to effective legal aid in criminal justice systems;

Emphasizes the importance of protecting persons in vulnerable groups or situations, and in that regard expresses its concern about the increase in the activities of transnational and national organized criminal groups and others who profit from crimes against migrants, especially women and children, without regard for dangerous and inhumane conditions and in flagrant violation of national laws and international law;

Also emphasizes the importance of combating trafficking in persons for the purpose of extracting organs, and in that regard expresses its concern about the increase in the activities of transnational and national organized criminal groups and others who profit from such crimes;

Invites Member States to strengthen the crime prevention and criminal justice response to gender-related killing of women and girls, in particular measures to support the capacity of Member States to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish all forms of such crime;

Urges the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to provide technical assistance to Member States to combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism through the Global Programme against Money-Laundering, Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism, in accordance with United Nations-related instruments and internationally accepted standards, including, where applicable, recommendations of relevant intergovernmental bodies, inter alia, the Financial Action Task Force and relevant initiatives of regional, interregional and multilateral organizations against money-laundering;

Urges Member States to strengthen bilateral, regional and international cooperation to enable the return of assets illicitly acquired from corruption to the countries of origin, upon their request, in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations Convention against Corruption for asset recovery, in particular chapter V, requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, within its existing mandate, to continue providing assistance to bilateral, regional and international efforts for that purpose, and also urges Member States to combat and penalize corruption, as well as the laundering of its proceeds;

Welcomes the establishment of the International Anti-Corruption Academy as a centre of excellence for education, training and academic research in the field of anti-corruption, including in the area of asset recovery, and looks forward to its continued efforts to promote the goals and implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption;

Calls upon States parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption to give particular and timely consideration to the execution of requests for international mutual legal assistance, particularly those related to the States concerned in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as to other requesting States in need of urgent action, and to ensure that the competent authorities of the requesting States have adequate resources to execute the requests, taking into account the particular importance of the recovery of the assets for sustainable development and stability;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to foster international and regional cooperation, including by facilitating the development of regional networks active in the field of legal and law enforcement cooperation in the fight against transnational organized crime, where appropriate, and by promoting cooperation among all such networks, including by providing technical assistance where it is required, and recognizes the efforts made by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to establish and assist such networks;

Urges the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to increase collaboration with intergovernmental, international and regional organizations that have transnational organized crime mandates, as appropriate, in order to share best practices, foster cooperation and take advantage of their unique and comparative advantage;

Recognizes the efforts made by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to assist Member States in developing abilities and strengthening their capacity to prevent and combat kidnapping, and requests the Office to continue to provide technical assistance with a view to fostering international cooperation, in particular mutual legal assistance, aimed at countering effectively this growing serious crime;

Draws attention to the emerging policy issues identified in the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the mandates of the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme, with particular reference to the technical cooperation activities of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, namely, piracy, cybercrime, the use of new information technologies to abuse and exploit children, trafficking in cultural property, illicit financial flows, environmental crime, including illicit trafficking in endangered species of wild fauna and flora, as well as identity related crime, and invites the Office to explore, within its mandate, ways and means of addressing those issues, bearing in mind Economic and Social Council resolution 2012/12 of 26 July 2012 on the strategy for the period 2012–2015 for the Office;

Invites Member States, and requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, within its existing mandate, to continue strengthening the regular collection, analysis and dissemination of accurate, reliable and comparable data and information, including, as appropriate, data disaggregated by sex, age and other relevant criteria, and strongly encourages Member States to share such data and information with the Office;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue developing, in close cooperation with Member States, technical and methodological tools and trend analyses and studies to enhance knowledge on crime trends and support Member States in designing appropriate responses in specific areas of crime, in particular in their transnational dimension, taking into account the need to make the best possible use of existing resources;

Urges Member States and relevant international organizations to develop national and regional strategies, as appropriate, and other necessary measures, in cooperation with the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme, to effectively address transnational organized crime, including drug trafficking, trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, as well as corruption and terrorism;

Encourages Member States to enhance the effectiveness of countering criminal threats to the tourism sector, including terrorist threats, through, when appropriate, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and other relevant international organizations, in cooperation with the World Tourism Organization and the private sector;

Urges States parties to use the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime for broad cooperation in preventing and combating all forms and aspects of trafficking in cultural property and related offences, especially in returning such proceeds of crime or property to their legitimate owners, in accordance with article 14, paragraph 2, of the Convention, and invites States parties to exchange information on all forms and aspects of trafficking in cultural property and related offences, in accordance with their national laws, and to coordinate administrative and other measures taken, as appropriate, for the prevention, early detection and punishment of such offences;

Urges Member States to introduce effective national and international measures to prevent and combat illicit trafficking in cultural property, including publicizing legislation and offering special training for police, customs and border services, and to consider such trafficking a serious crime, as defined in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;

Urges the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to assist Member States, upon request, in combating illicit trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, and to support them in their efforts to address its links with other forms of transnational organized crime, through, inter alia, technical assistance;

Reaffirms Economic and Social Council resolution 2013/40 of 25 July 2013, entitled “Crime prevention and criminal justice responses to illicit trafficking in protected species of wild fauna and flora,” which encouraged Member States to make illicit trafficking in protected species of wild fauna and flora involving organized criminal groups a serious crime, as defined in article 2, paragraph (b), of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, in order to ensure that adequate and effective means of international cooperation can be afforded under the Convention in the investigation and prosecution of those engaged in illicit trafficking in protected species of wild fauna and flora;

Strongly encourages Member States to take appropriate measures, consistent with their domestic legislation and legal frameworks, to strengthen law enforcement and related efforts to combat individuals and groups, including organized criminal groups, operating within their borders, with a view to preventing, combating and eradicating international trafficking in wildlife, forest products, including timber, and other forest biological resources harvested in contravention of national laws and relevant international instruments;

Reaffirms Economic and Social Council resolution 2013/38 of 25 July 2013, entitled “Combating transnational organized crime and its possible links to trafficking in precious metals”, which encouraged Member States to take appropriate measures to prevent and combat illicit trafficking in precious metals by organized criminal groups, including, where appropriate, the adoption and effective implementation of the necessary legislation for the prevention, investigation and prosecution of illicit trafficking in precious metals;

Also reaffirms the importance of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and its regional offices in building capacity at the local level in the fight against transnational organized crime and drug trafficking, and urges the Office to consider regional vulnerabilities, projects and impact in the fight against transnational organized crime, in particular in developing countries, when deciding to close and allocate offices, with a view to maintaining an effective level of support to national and regional efforts in those areas;

Encourages Member States to continue supporting the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in providing targeted technical assistance, within its existing mandate, to enhance the capacity of affected States, upon their request, to combat piracy and other forms of crime committed at sea, including by assisting Member States in creating an effective law enforcement response and strengthening their judicial capacity;

Notes the progress achieved by the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption in the implementation of their respective mandates, and encourages Member States to give full effect to the resolutions adopted by these bodies;

Encourages States parties to continue to provide full support to the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, and to their subsidiary bodies, including providing information to the conferences of the parties to the conventions regarding compliance with the treaties;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to provide the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime with adequate resources to promote, in an effective manner, the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 as amended by the 1972 Protocol, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988 and the United Nations Convention against Corruption and to discharge its functions as the secretariat of the conferences of the parties to the conventions, the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and the United Nations congresses on crime prevention and criminal justice, in accordance with its mandate;

Urges States parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption to continue to provide full support to the review mechanism adopted by the Conference of the States Parties to the Convention;

Reiterates its request to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to enhance its technical assistance to Member States, upon request, to strengthen international cooperation in preventing and combating terrorism through the facilitation of the ratification and implementation of the universal conventions and protocols related to terrorism, in close consultation with the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1373 (2001) concerning counter-terrorism (the Counter-Terrorism Committee) and its Executive Directorate, as well as to continue to contribute to the work of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, and invites Member States to provide the Office with appropriate resources for its mandate;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to provide technical assistance to Member States, upon request, to strengthen the rule of law, taking also into account the work undertaken by the Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group of the Secretariat and other relevant United Nations bodies;

Encourages Member States to take relevant measures, as appropriate to their national contexts, to ensure the diffusion, use and application of the United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice, including the consideration and, where they deem it necessary, dissemination of existing manuals and handbooks developed and published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime;

Requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in collaboration and close consultation with Member States and within existing resources, to continue to support the enhancement of capacity and skills in the field of forensic sciences, including the setting of standards, and the development of technical assistance material for training, such as manuals, compilations of useful practices and guidelines and scientific and forensic reference material, for law enforcement officials and prosecution authorities, and to promote and facilitate the establishment and sustainability of regional networks of forensic science providers in order to enhance their expertise and capacity to prevent and combat transnational organized crime;

Reiterates the importance of providing the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme with sufficient, stable and predictable funding for the full implementation of its mandates, in conformity with the high priority accorded to it and in accordance with the increasing demand for its services, in particular with regard to the provision of increased assistance to developing countries, countries with economies in transition and countries emerging from conflict, in the area of crime prevention and criminal justice reform;

Urges all Member States to provide the fullest possible financial and political support to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime by widening its donor base and increasing voluntary contributions, in particular general-purpose contributions, so as to enable it to continue, expand, improve and strengthen, within its mandates, its operational and technical cooperation activities;

Expresses concern regarding the overall financial situation of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, emphasizes the need to provide the Office with adequate, predictable and stable resources and to ensure their cost-effective utilization, and requests the Secretary-General to continue to report, within existing reporting obligations, on the financial situation of the Office and to continue to ensure that the Office has sufficient resources to carry out its mandates fully and effectively;

Invites Member States and other interested parties to make further voluntary contributions to the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and to the United Nations Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session on the implementation of the mandates of the United Nations crime prevention and criminal justice programme, reflecting also emerging policy issues and possible responses;

Also requests the Secretary-General to include in the report referred to in paragraph 49 above information on the status of ratifications or accessions to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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