Vientiane (Lao PDR), 11 September 2024 – Rapid economic integration and technological advances have spurred unprecedented prosperity in Southeast Asia, but these same forces have also created fertile ground for cross-border organized crime to flourish. For countries to get ahead of this threat, effective international cooperation in criminal matters is key―a need that was front and centre as experts gathered in Vientiane last month for the 2024 South East Asia Justice Network plenary meeting.
“Organized criminal groups don’t stop at borders, but rather use them to their advantage, knowing that crossing them too frequently hampers investigations and prosecutions. Delays or even lack of cooperation between criminal justice institutions often really means letting organized criminal groups win,” said Benedikt Hofmann, Deputy Representative of UNODC’s Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Representatives of central authorities highlighted the importance of SEAJust, the South East Asia Justice Network, in bridging gaps between formal legal processes and the urgent demands of cross-border crime fighting. The idea behind SEAJust is to create an informal channel through which countries can easily be in close contact when international prosecutions are taking place. It does not replace, but rather supplements, the sometimes slow, formal mutual legal assistance mechanisms that exist between countries by encouraging prosecutors to maintain regular contact and speed up processes.
“Delays in international cooperation often allow these criminal organizations to evade justice, further entrenching their influence across Southeast Asia,” Hofmann added. “International cooperation in criminal matters lies at the core of efforts to respond to organized crime more effectively.”
Promoting informal cooperation across borders
Networks such as SEAJust are critical in a region like Southeast Asia where often long, complicated processes to recover digital evidence and assets across borders are being exploited by criminals to obscure their operations.
SEAJust fosters direct relationships, expedites legal processes and is essential in facilitating swift mutual legal assistance (MLA) requests. Since its inception in 2020, the fast-growing network has facilitated over 110 cases, proving its effectiveness in navigating the legal intricacies that often impede justice. It now includes 22 member countries and territories, with the recent additions of China; France; Hong Kong, China; Japan; Macao, China; Mongolia, and the United States of America.
As the guardian of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), UNODC has been working alongside Member States for over two decades, developing key tools to facilitate these efforts, such as handbooks, guides to good legislative practices, an MLA Request Writer Tool, and Electronic Evidence Fiches, which help law enforcement and legal professionals understand the specific procedures and rules for preserving and obtaining digital evidence from foreign service providers.
However, international cooperation in criminal matters, and in particular MLA, can still be very lengthy, especially when criminal justice practitioners do not know the criminal justice systems of other countries, their requirements in terms of MLA requests and the right persons to contact.
Throughout the plenary meeting, best practices from various regional cooperation mechanisms were highlighted, including the ASEAN Chiefs of National Police (ASEANAPOL), INTERPOL and the Judicial Cooperation Network for Central Asia and Southern Caucasus (CASC). Representatives from the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), the European Judicial Network (EJN) and Global Operational Network of Anti-Corruption Law Enforcement Authorities (GlobE) also shared good practices to combat organized crime. Examples showcased the importance of fostering strong, informal networks and the role of competent authorities in ensuring the expeditious execution of MLA requests.
“We have differences in our legal frameworks, laws, and systems,” said Yungsam Shin, Prosecutorial and Judicial Advisor for UNODC’s Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “But when there are some barriers arising from these, communication is the key to overcome those barriers and to allow us to move forward towards cooperation.”