THE DUBLIN DECLARATION

RESULTING FROM THOSE ATTENDING THE FIRST EUROPEAN CONGRESS ON “TACKLING ORGANISED CRIME IN PARTNERSHIP”

HELD AT THE ROYAL HOSPITAL, KILMAINHAM, DUBLIN, IRELAND
ON 20 AND 21 NOVEMBER 2003

Please direct any further comments relating to this declaration to the congress sponsoring organisations:

The Netherlands
Netherlands Centre for International Police Cooperation
Mr A.L. Driessen
Director
Telephone: +31 70 3118686
email: tdriessen@ncips.nl

Ireland
Dept of Justice Equality and Law Reform
Mr. John Garry
Telephone: +353 1 6028730
email: john_j._garry@justice.ie

European Commission
Directorate General Justice and Home Affairs,
Unit B.2 "Fight against organised crime » LX46 4/55
Ms Ana Isabel Sánchez Ruiz
Telephone: +32 2998239
email: ana-isabel.sanchez-ruiz@cec.eu.int

“TACKLING ORGANISED CRIME IN PARTNERSHIP” THE DUBLIN DECLARATION

“Tackling Organised Crime in Partnership”, the first European Congress on developing partnerships between the public and private sectors to identify, measure and prevent harm from organised crime, was held in Dublin on 20th and 21st November 2003. It brought together more than 300 public and private sector representatives from European Union Member States and Acceding Countries. Delegates from South Africa, Israel, Romania, Croatia, Finland, Norway and the United States of America were also present. In addition to the public and private sectors, governmental organisations (Interpol, Europol, and the World Customs Organisation), non-governmental organisations, industry associations and academia were also represented.

The Congress was co-financed under the European Commission’s “AGIS” programme; developed through a partnership of the incoming (2004) Irish and Dutch Presidencies of the Council of the European Union; and supported by Europol and the Justice and Home Affairs Directorate General of the European Commission.

This Declaration is the result of submissions made during the preparatory stages of the Congress and contributions made by delegates during, and subsequent to, debates within the Congress. Its purpose is to assist the further development of European and international co-operation across the private and public sectors and to strengthen measures, standards, best practices, and mechanisms to reduce and prevent harm from the activities of organised crime.

The overriding objective of this groundbreaking Congress was to explore ways in which the potential harm from the activities of organised crime can be identified, measured and prevented. Innovative thinkers from the private and public sectors and academia gathered to debate and develop ways to tackle this global threat recognising that, if left unchecked, organised crime will increasingly cause serious harm, particularly social and economic harm, to governments and business sectors while also seriously damaging the quality of life of citizens. For example, the global economic impact of counterfeiting on legitimate companies in 2000 amounted to an estimated €450 billion and there is every indication that this figure is still growing.

Congress accepted ‘Organised Crime’ as defined in the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime and the EU Joint Action 98/733/JHA of 21 December 1998 (which makes it a criminal offence to participate in a criminal organisation - see Justice and Home Affairs/organised crime pages of the europa website www.europa.eu.int ). In addition, Congress took the view that corruption, which is frequently a tool of organised crime, also merits consideration within the issues discussed.

The private and public sectors share a common interest in jointly developing ways to identify and prevent the incidence of harm from the activities of organised crime. The Congress therefore addressed the challenge of how this common interest could be harnessed through establishing mechanisms and structures to facilitate a partnership approach to lessen the impact of organised crime on private and public stakeholders drawing, where appropriate, on the relevant experience of existing partnerships. It was noted that for this purpose the private sector should encompass not only the business community but should extend to other stakeholders representing civil society including non-governmental organisations and universities.

The real success of the two days was the involvement of the private sector, which is being hard hit, and the creation of a framework within which mutually beneficial relationships can be forged with the relevant private sector alongside law enforcement bodies, governments and international organisations to identify trends and recommend solutions to the threat from organised crime. The key to continuing success will be to maintain lasting partnerships that can identify the ongoing threat from organised crime groups and take a proactive role to combat and prevent harm from their activities.

The issues addressed and considered by speakers and delegates broadly centred on the following principal themes:

 The need to establish effective partnerships between the private and public sectors to reduce the impact of organised crime;
 The need to make European criminal intelligence systems mutually compatible, establish common goals and priorities in Member State law enforcement services and work towards a coherent EU information policy for law enforcement investigation purposes;
 The need for a common language on European crime statistics to help in the assessment of crime trends, benchmarking of policy effectiveness and to facilitate valid comparisons;
 The need to establish local, national and European platforms made up of private and public sector stakeholders to focus on crime prevention and to raise public awareness about the harm caused by organised crime;
 The need for a structured system to co-ordinate research and development capability with particular focus on the potential role of science and technology in crime prevention;
 The need for further development of “crime proofing” models both in respect of legislation, products and services as a means of reducing opportunities for crime.
 The need to facilitate and optimize the lawful flow of information, current and historical, on crime and its prevention and detection between the public and private sectors.

The whole of society has a stake in preventing the advance and infiltration of organised crime. Law enforcement alone cannot achieve this objective. In this context, the Congress took note of Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union, which refers to the prevention of crime as one of the means of achieving the Union’s objective of providing its citizens with a high level of safety within an area of freedom, security and justice. European leaders have emphasised that crime prevention should also be a common priority in both internal and external policies. The Congress highlighted the importance of incorporating preventive aspects into the fight against organised crime and the development of national prevention programmes. The need to identify common priorities in the Union’s international and national prevention policies was also emphasised.

The congress welcomed the European Commission’s formation (in May 2001) of the EU Forum for the Prevention of Organised Crime, designed to raise awareness of this phenomenon among private and public stakeholders and to mobilise them through new forms of partnerships. The Congress recognised the importance of effective exchange of information between the relevant stakeholders of the private and public sectors in the fight against organised crime and the need for private sector involvement as an integral part of national criminal intelligence systems.

In this context the Congress concluded that concrete practical measures should be developed to intensify co-operation amongst all sectors affected by organised crime. To this end, and with a view to building on the partnership approach, the Congress recommended that a Protocol at national level, and an EU Action Plan, should be developed to structure co-operation between official agencies and the private sector to strengthen the prevention of and the fight against organised crime. This and other recommendations are listed below:

Recommendations

1. The creation of active partnerships between the private and public sectors, based on mutual trust and a common objective of reducing the harm caused by organised crime, is an effective way to tackle this type of crime and should be developed further. It is recommended that leaders in the private and public sectors be invited to emphasise their commitment to the fight against organised crime by engaging in the formation of partnerships between the public and private sectors at local, national, European and international levels.

2. It is recommended that a Protocol on partnerships between the public and private sectors at national level be developed alongside an Action Plan at EU level. These would identify the key elements required for establishing effective partnerships within the entire European Union to enable private sector stakeholders, law enforcement and government bodies to work together to minimise the harm caused by organised crime. The National Protocols and EU Action Plan should include crime incidence reporting and scoping provisions from the private sector to competent public authorities and extend to data collected by the private sector relevant to sectoral vulnerability studies at local, national and international levels. There is also a need for enhanced dialogue between private and public sector representatives at EU and international levels to support the work done by law enforcement bodies, EU institutions and the Member States. Co-operation and partnership should be encouraged between law enforcement and the private sector in the development of common and compatible intelligence models and the sharing of intelligence data used in these models, taking into consideration relevant domestic and international provisions on data protection and confidentiality. Investigation of the infiltration by organised crime of legitimate business activity frequently requires forensic accounting skills, financial or other sector specific expertise. Since these skills may be lacking in law enforcement and public prosecution services, well defined partnerships will help to bridge knowledge or expertise gaps to ensure a more effective fight against organised crime.

3. In order to establish truly effective law enforcement co-operation at EU level, it is recommended that EU Member States review their criminal intelligence systems and procedures with a view to rendering them mutually compatible with common minimum standards. This synchronisation of criminal intelligence systems will help to set a solid basis for an integrated European threat and risk assessment, a co-ordinated law enforcement agenda and effective strategic and operational co-operation, supported by provisions such as 24/7 contact networks based at Europol, safe communication lines and compatible confidentiality rules.

4. The Annual Organised Crime Report prepared by Europol provides the single effective European framework for the documentation of organised crime incidence, trends and threats. Member States are strongly encouraged to continue effective reporting in line with Europol requirements, as the adherence to deadlines is crucial for effective future European policy planning. It is therefore recommended that Member States bring their national collection, reporting and planning cycle in line with the European process as organised by Europol. National contributions should be elaborated according to separate national, but co-ordinated time tables. The measurement of economic harm and its impact on economic stability and sustainability is rarely part of classical policing concepts. However, in the context of an output oriented and pragmatic fight against organised crime, economic harm assessments need to gain critical importance as a basis for preventive and repressive policy formulation.

5. In order to optimise European law enforcement co-operation and so provide, among other things, a strong basis for co-operation between the public and private sectors, it is recommended that the effective collection, storage, analysis and exchange of data must be consistently promoted at EU level under the umbrella of a comprehensive EU law enforcement information policy. The value of existing data would be enhanced by networking existing databases through data mining and automated collection mechanisms and by using their contents as integral elements of high performing data analysis strategies. Any future action in this area should take account of data protection in law enforcement co-operation and so strike the appropriate balance between robust data protection and data security on the one hand and high performing use of law enforcement data at affordable costs on the other.

6. It is recommended that a comprehensive system of European crime statistics should be elaborated and a co-ordinated EU Crime Statistics Strategy be developed. The objective of the strategy should be to provide information necessary for analysing trends, assessing risks, evaluating measures and benchmarking performance. This will be supported by input from the Crime Experts Group recently set up under the EU Forum for the Prevention of Organised Crime and the EU Crime Prevention Network. The strategy would identify common minimum standards in crime statistics, including agreed definitions of terms and other crime indicators as well as EU-wide information collection methodologies. European Crime Statistics are not complete without the setting up of effective reporting mechanisms between private and public sectors. Crime reporting by private sector bodies, if necessary, sanitised and in line with sectorally expressed sensitivities, should become a structural and systematically requested source of European crime statistics. The private sector should be encouraged to implement processes that will disclose to the competent authorities the true extent of crime losses.

7. Drawing on knowledge derived from European threat assessments, it is recommended that national platforms involving the fullest possible range of stakeholders from the public and private sectors be established in each country to enhance the co-ordination and development of crime prevention initiatives and raise public awareness of crime prevention. They should be encouraged to produce annual work programmes, action plans and be properly funded. Issues to be placed high on the agenda of such platforms should include, inter alia, national threat and economic risk assessments, including questions related to statistics and database communication, national crime proofing priorities, national and cross-border crime prevention research initiatives, and a broadly focused exchange of best practices. Partnerships between the public and private sectors should be the core of these national platforms and, amongst other things, raise public awareness of both the true impact of organised crime on society and the means of reducing that impact.

8. It is recommended that an EU Crime Prevention Research Advisory Panel be established, supported by similar arrangements in Member States to include, inter alia, academics, scientists, designers and other representatives from the private and public sectors. These should ensure that the highest level of co-ordination of requirements and sharing of best practice is achieved in the identification of the crime preventive capacity of science and technology and so minimise the harm from organised crime. Arrangements in Member States could include representatives from regional governments the private and public sector, and research bodies with a view to developing local and regional projects aimed at fostering effective crime prevention cultures.

9. Greater effort should be applied to the prevention of crime through the application of “crime proofing” techniques - reducing the opportunities for crime which may be inadvertently created by legislation, products, services and processes. In this context, it is recommended that an EU Good Practice Guide on designing crime out of legislation, products and services be developed in conjunction with relevant manufacturers, consumer bodies and other stakeholders. This would identify issues to be taken into account to enhance the crime resistance of products and services which may have a tendency to become the target or tool for crime. As an element of corporate social responsibility, the relevant private sector should be encouraged to take greater account of crime risks which may be inherent in products and services. This should cover not only crime risks to the internal operations of businesses such as fraud and counterfeiting, but also address crime risk associated with consumer use of products or services.

10. In order to sustain the momentum of the Congress it is recommended that a consultative process be launched on the establishment, membership and role of a Steering Group at EU level to deliberate and advise on the Action Plan for tackling organised crime in partnership. Where actions are to be conducted on a national basis, a similar joint management approach should be encouraged.

AGIS 2003 With financial support from the AGIS Programme European Commission - Directorate General Justice and Home Affairs