PAM Roving Ambassador and Senior Advisor on Counterterrorism, Amb. Jean-Paul Laborde, represented PAM at the International Conference on Countering Illicit Arms Trafficking in the Context of Fighting International Terrorism, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and held in Moscow on 3-4 September 2018.
The conference, which brought together 132 participants from 25 countries and 10 international organisations, focused on strengthening international cooperation to stop illegal arms from reaching the hands of terrorist groups.
Speaking on behalf of PAM, Amb. Laborde, recalling the unique contribution by the Assembly to the global effort on Counter Terrorism, raised a number of specific issues related to the nexus of illegal arms trafficking, terrorism, and transnational crime. He highlighted a number of concrete examples of this interconnection, such as the destabilisation of the Sahel region by terrorist groups using weapons stolen in Libya, and the sharp rise of weapon smuggling in 2013 between Syria and neighbouring countries, which was linked directly with a massive increase in ISIS activity of that same year.
He went on to highlight that while the link between arms trafficking, transnational criminal groups, and terrorism is quite evident, the international cooperation in criminal matters to tackle these issues comprehensively is still not adequate.
He indicated two key reasons for this. At the national level, counter-terrorism units of law enforcement agencies are not the same as anti-organised crime units, because of the so-called political aspect of terrorism. Additionally, at the international level, the conventions and protocols against these activities are also different.
As a concrete tool to reinforce international cooperation on this matter, he emphasised the benefits of the “Protocol against illicit manufacturing and trafficking in firearms”, which is an addition to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (TOC). At this time, the protocol still has a reduced number of ratifications compared to other TOC instruments, and that unfortunately there are political and technical hesitation to enforce this instrument.
Recalling the address by PAM Secretary General at a side event of the UN General Assembly on links between transitional crime and terrorism in Africa, he proposed that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, as already done for other international instruments, should and could represent an excellent platform to hold a dedicated seminar on the use of this Protocol and other instruments to address this issue. Such a meeting would be coordinated closely with UN CTED, UNODC, and UN OCT, as the key agencies mandated to tackle the issues of both terrorism and transnational crime, and such an event could further promote dialogue between parliamentarians, law enforcement representatives, UN and EU experts, prosecutors and the judiciary, to exchange views and strategies on the use of international instruments to fight arms trafficking and terrorism.