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

A/RES/70/178View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 106 Crime prevention and criminal justice, published in 2016.

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 and 69/195, 69/197 and 69/199 of 18 December 2014;²²

²²A/70/99.

Reaffirms its resolution 70/1, entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which, inter alia, includes the commitment to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels;

Calls upon all Member States, when appropriate, to take into consideration the Doha Declaration on Integrating Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice into the Wider United Nations Agenda to Address Social and Economic Challenges and to Promote the Rule of Law at the National and International Levels, and Public Participation, adopted at the Thirteenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, held in Doha from 12 to 19 April 2015,7 when formulating legislation and policy directives, and to make every effort, where appropriate, to implement the principles contained therein in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations;

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,1 the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 as amended by the 1972 Protocol,2 the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971,3 the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988,4 the United Nations Convention against Corruption5 and the international conventions and protocols related to terrorism, and urges States parties to those conventions and protocols to make efforts towards their effective implementation;

Reaffirms that the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto represent the most important tools of the international community for fighting transnational organized crime, and notes with appreciation that the number of States parties has reached 186, which is a significant indication of the commitment shown by the international community to combating transnational organized crime;

Recalls article 32 of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime9 and General Assembly resolution 69/197, in which, inter alia, the need for the establishment of a mechanism to review the implementation of the Convention and the Protocols thereto by States parties was reiterated, and underlines that the review of the implementation of the Convention is an ongoing and gradual process and that it is necessary to explore all options regarding the establishment of a mechanism to assist the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime in the review of the implementation of the Convention and the Protocols thereto, welcomes in this regard the convening of an open-ended intergovernmental meeting with a view to analysing such options, and invites Member States to continue the dialogue in this regard;

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 United Nations Convention against Corruption, and notes with appreciation that the number of States parties has reached 178, which is a significant indication of the commitment shown by the international community to combating corruption and related crimes;

Welcomes 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 calls upon States parties to give full effect to the resolutions adopted by those bodies, including providing information regarding compliance with the treaties;

Encourages Member States to strengthen the capacity of their respective criminal justice systems to investigate, prosecute and punish all forms of crime, while supporting an effective, fair, humane and accountable criminal justice system and 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;

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 other United Nations entities, within existing mandates, and to continue to ensure coordination and coherence, including through the Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group of the Secretariat;

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;

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, in accordance with the commitments contained in General Assembly resolution 70/1;

Urges Member States and relevant international organizations to develop national, subregional, regional and international 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, and to strengthen all forms of cooperation to enable the return of assets illicitly acquired from corruption, in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations Convention against Corruption for asset recovery, in particular chapter V, with the cooperation of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, within its existing mandate;

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 in respect of all forms of organized crime, including piracy and transnational organized crime committed at sea, cybercrime, the use of new information technologies to abuse and exploit children, as well as identity-related crime, trafficking in cultural property, illicit financial flows, economic, financial and tax crime, trafficking in precious metals and stones, counterfeiting in trademark goods, crimes that affect the environment and illicit trafficking in endangered species of wild fauna and flora, drug trafficking, trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, direct and indirect trade in oil and refined oil products with organized criminal and terrorist groups, as well as corruption and terrorism;

Calls upon Member States to strengthen cooperation at the international, regional, subregional and bilateral levels to counter the threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters, including through enhanced operational and timely information-sharing, logistical support, as appropriate, and capacity-building activities, such as those provided by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, to share and adopt best practices to identify foreign terrorist fighters, to prevent the travel of foreign terrorist fighters from, into or through Member States, to prevent the financing, mobilization, recruitment and organization of foreign terrorist fighters, to counter violent extremism and radicalization to violence, which can be conducive to terrorism, to enhance efforts to implement deradicalization programmes and to ensure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in the supporting of terrorist acts is brought to justice, in compliance with obligations under international law, as well as applicable domestic law;

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;

Reaffirms the importance of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and its country and regional offices in building capacity at the local level in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice, and urges the Office to consider regional vulnerabilities, projects and impacts in the fight against transnational organized crime in all its forms, 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;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to provide the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime with adequate resources to support, in an effective manner, efforts toward the implementation of 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, 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 and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, as well as the United Nations congresses on crime prevention and criminal justice, in accordance with its mandate;

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, also considering the extension of the mandate of the standing open-ended intergovernmental working group on improving the governance and financial situation of the Office, 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 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;

Calls upon Member States to intensify national and international efforts to eliminate all forms of discrimination, including racism, religious intolerance, xenophobia and gender-related discrimination by, inter alia, raising awareness, developing educational materials and programmes and considering, where appropriate, drafting and enforcing legislation against discrimination;

Emphasizes the importance of protecting vulnerable members of society, regardless of their status, who may be subject to multiple and aggravated forms of discrimination, 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;

Calls upon Member States to implement, when appropriate, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules),²³ as finalized by the dedicated Expert Group at its meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 2 to 5 March 2015, bearing in mind their spirit and purpose, and to intensify their efforts to address the challenge of prison overcrowding through appropriate criminal justice reforms, which should include, where appropriate, a review of penal policies and practical measures to reduce pretrial detention, to enhance the use of non-custodial sanctions and to improve access to legal aid to the extent possible, and requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to provide technical assistance to Member States, upon request, in this respect;

²³Resolution 70/175, annex.

Invites Member States to mainstream a gender perspective into their criminal justice systems, including by the use of non-custodial measures for women, when appropriate, and by improving the treatment of women prisoners, taking into consideration the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules),²⁴ and by developing and implementing national strategies and plans to promote the full protection of women and girls from all acts of violence and to strengthen the crime prevention and criminal justice response to the gender-related killing of women and girls, in particular by taking measures to support the practical capacity of Member States to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish all forms of such crime, and welcomes in this respect the practical tools recommended by the open-ended intergovernmental expert group on gender-related killing of women and girls at its meeting held in Bangkok from 11 to 13 November 2014;²⁵

²⁴Resolution 65/229, annex.

²⁵See E/CN.15/2015/16.

Also invites Member States to integrate child- and youth-related issues into their criminal justice reform efforts, recognizing the importance of protecting children from all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse, consistent with the obligations of parties under relevant international instruments, and to develop comprehensive child-sensitive justice policies focused on the best interests of the child, consistent with the principle that the deprivation of liberty of children should be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time;

Recognizes the efforts made by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to assist Member States in developing their 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;

Calls upon Member States to reinforce international cooperation for preventing and combating the smuggling of migrants and for the prosecution of smugglers, in accordance, as appropriate, with article 6 of the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,²⁶ and with national laws and legislation, while effectively protecting the rights and respecting the dignity of smuggled migrants, consistent with the principles of non-discrimination and other applicable obligations under relevant international law, taking into account the special needs of women, children, especially when unaccompanied, and persons with disabilities and older persons, and in collaboration with international organizations, civil society and the private sector, and in this regard calls upon the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue its technical assistance to Member States in accordance with the above-mentioned Protocol;

²⁶United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2241, No. 39574.

Encourages Member States to ensure that, in investigating and prosecuting the smuggling of migrants, the concurrent undertaking of financial investigations is considered, with a view to tracing, freezing and confiscating proceeds acquired through that crime, and to consider the smuggling of migrants to be a predicate offence of money-laundering;

Emphasizes the importance of preventing and combating all forms of trafficking in persons, and in this regard expresses its concern about the activities of transnational and national organized criminal groups and others who profit from such crimes, including for the purpose of organ removal, and calls upon Member States to strengthen national efforts to combat all forms of trafficking in persons and to protect and assist the victims of trafficking in accordance with all relevant legal obligations and in collaboration with international organizations, civil society and the private sector;

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, including the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters and its financial sources, 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;

Urges the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to continue to provide, within its mandate, technical assistance to Member States, upon their request, 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 international standards, including, where applicable, standards and relevant initiatives of regional, interregional and multilateral organizations and intergovernmental bodies against money-laundering, inter alia and as appropriate, the Financial Action Task Force, in accordance with national legislation;

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

Affirms that attacks intentionally directed against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, or historic monuments, may amount to war crimes, stresses the importance of holding accountable perpetrators of attacks intentionally directed against the above-mentioned buildings, provided they are not military objectives, and calls upon all States to take appropriate action to this end within their jurisdiction in accordance with applicable international law;

Urges States parties to make effective use of 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, including money-laundering and the financing of terrorism, especially in returning such confiscated 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 and statistical data on all forms and aspects of trafficking in cultural property and related offences, also reaffirming in this regard the importance of the International Guidelines for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Responses with Respect to Trafficking in Cultural Property and Other Related Offences, as adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 69/196;

Urges Member States to introduce effective national and international measures to prevent and combat illicit trafficking in cultural property, including publicizing legislation, international guidelines and related technical background documents, 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;

Also urges Member States to take decisive steps at the national level to prevent, combat and eradicate the illegal trade in wildlife, on both the supply and demand sides, including by strengthening the legislation necessary for the prevention, investigation and prosecution of such illegal trade, as well as by strengthening enforcement and criminal justice responses, in accordance with national legislation and international law, acknowledging that the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime can provide valuable technical assistance in this regard;

Calls upon Member States to make illicit trafficking in protected species of wild fauna and flora involving organized criminal groups a serious crime in accordance with their national legislation and with article 2 (b) of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;

Also calls upon Member States to take appropriate and effective measures to prevent and combat trafficking in precious metals and stones 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 and stones;

Encourages Member States to continue to support 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 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, and calls upon Member States to explore specific measures designed to create a secure and resilient cyberenvironment, to prevent and counter effectively criminal activities carried out over the Internet, paying particular attention to identity theft, recruitment for the purpose of trafficking in persons and protecting children from online exploitation and abuse, to strengthen law enforcement cooperation at the national and international levels, including with the aim of identifying and protecting victims by, inter alia, removing child pornography, in particular child sexual abuse imagery, from the Internet, to enhance the security of computer networks and protect the integrity of relevant infrastructure, and to endeavour to provide long-term technical assistance and capacity-building to strengthen the ability of national authorities to deal with cybercrime, including the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of such crime in all its forms;

Encourages Member States to strengthen their efforts in combating cybercrime and all forms of criminal abuse of information and telecommunications technologies, and to enhance international cooperation in this regard;

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

Calls upon Member States to intensify all efforts to address the world drug problem, based upon the principle of common and shared responsibility and through a comprehensive and balanced approach, including through more effective bilateral, regional and international cooperation among judicial and law enforcement authorities, to counter the involvement of organized criminal groups in illicit drug production and trafficking and related criminal activities and to take steps to reduce the violence that accompanies drug trafficking;

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 ones that focus on early prevention by using multidisciplinary 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;

Invites Member States to develop national plans for the gradual adoption of the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes and to strengthen national statistical systems of criminal justice, requests the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, within its existing mandate, to continue to strengthen 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 to develop, in close cooperation with Member States, technical and methodological tools and trend analyses and studies to enhance knowledge of 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;

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;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the General Assembly at its seventy-first 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.

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?

Table of contents