Focal Points are the governmental officials coordinating the participation of the State in the review. Each country can appoint only one Focal Point per each review in which it participates. Focal Points can be changed along the process but there can only be one Focal Point per country per review at any given time. In each step of the review process, the Focal Point clears the final submission drafted by Governmental Experts, certifying that the final output of each step is agreeable to his/her country.
Governmental Experts contribute substantively to the review process by responding to the self-assessment questionnaire during their country’s own review, providing feedback and drafting the lists of observations and summaries when they are a reviewing State party. All Experts are also involved in a constant process of consultation and dialogue with the Experts of the other countries during the process.
Observers have access to the content of the reviews but cannot modify it. Their access to the reviews in REVMOD is “read only”. Often this type of access is granted to personnel from Permanent Missions.
The nomination of Focal Points, Experts and Observers shall be communicated through a Note Verbale to be sent via email to untoc.review@un.org, indicating the name, title, email, phone number and role of the nominated participants.
Changes/replacements of Focal Points, Experts and Observers can be submitted throughout the process. These changes shall be communicated through a Note Verbale to be sent via email to untoc.review@un.org, indicating: the name, title, email, phone number and role of the nominated participants. The Note Verbale should also indicate which users will no longer participate in the review process.
Upon receipt of the Note Verbale, the Secretariat will register the participants in REVMOD, and send them the activation links. Through this link, Focal Points, Experts and Observers will be able to create their profile in REVMOD and submit it for approval.
No, there can only be one Focal Point per country in each review.
Resolutions 9/1 and 10/1 of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime do not envisage a direct role for Permanent Missions in the context of the Review Mechanism. However, the Secretariat still values the cooperation with Permanent Missions, as it is extremely important to keep an open channel of communication with States parties.
In this sense, some States have added to their list of authorized users for REVMOD personnel from their Permanent Mission, usually (but not only) – with the role of “Observers” – which means that this user will have access to the whole content of the review in view-only mode.
Moreover, Permanent Missions can play a key part in supporting the Secretariat, in particular in facilitating communication with the capital to follow-up on the nomination of Focal Points and Governmental Experts and to act as key interlocutors for the Review Mechanism in the absence of a Focal Point or in case of an unresponsive Focal Point.
REVMOD can be accessed through the following URL: http://revmod.unodc.org/
Links will expire automatically after 30 days. If your link does not work, please, send an email to unodc-revmod@un.org, and we will resend the REVMOD activation email to you. Always check your spam folder to ensure that you can timely access the link.
The Secretariat will cross-check the information you have included in your profile in REVMOD against the Note Verbale received from the Permanent Mission and will either approve it or ask for clarification, as appropriate. Upon approval of the profile, you will have access to the reviews you were assigned. You will also be notified per email once your profile is approved.
The password shall contain at least 3 capital letters, 3 small letters, 3 numbers and 3 special characters. A password sample could be: PASSWORDpassword123!?#
Contact us at unodc-revmod@un.org and you will receive a link to set-up a new password.
According to UNTOC COP resolution 10/1 the reviews in the first review phase are to be staggered over three consecutive years, with their start dates as follows:
However, only once the three countries involved have appointed their Focal Points, the Secretariat will call for a preliminary consultation meeting (online) to facilitate the agreement on deadlines and language(s) for the specific country review. In most of the cases, the preliminary consultation marks the official start of a review, which will be used to establish the deadlines for the steps of the review.
According to UNTOC COP resolution 9/1, the Review Mechanism is structured on 4 thematic clusters of articles based on their subject matter. The sequence of thematic clusters will be as follows: Cluster I (Criminalization and Jurisdiction), Custer IV (International cooperation, mutual legal assistance and confiscation), Cluster III (Law enforcement and the judicial system) and Cluster II (Prevention, technical assistance, protection measures and other measures). Currently all reviews are in the first thematic cluster on criminalization and jurisdiction.
According to the indicative timeline (see Appendix of UNTOC COP resolution 9/1), each thematic cluster shall last 2 years. Once a cluster/phase is completed, the next one starts - following the same steps as the previous one. However, the advancement to the next cluster is not automatic - it is conditional upon the completion of 70 % of the reviews foreseen at the beginning of the previous phase, unless the Conference decides otherwise (resolution 9/1, par. 10) at its next regular session in October 2024.
More information on the timeline can be found here.
The self-assessment questionnaires for all thematic clusters are available on the Review Mechanism’s website in Word version. However, as the no thematic cluster other than the first one has yet started (given that the threshold of 70% of completed reviews has not yet been reached) States parties may work on the questionnaires while taking into account that the answers must be updated at the time of submission once the review for the respective thematic cluster has begun.
As a general rule, the responses to the self-assessment questionnaire are not publicly available. However, according to Paragraph 41 of the Procedures and Rules, States may decide to make their responses public. Should you wish to publish them, please contact us via email at untoc.review@un.org.
To facilitate this information, the Secretariat has created dedicated “Country profiles” webpages on the UNTOC Review Mechanism website. Each country has an individual webpage which summarizes the main information concerning its participation in the UNTOC Review Mechanism such as:
I did not receive any communication regarding the preliminary consultation. What does that mean?
It means that the Secretariat has not yet received the nominations of Focal Points from at least one of the countries involved in the review.
Yes. The self-assessment questionnaire is available for the representatives of the country under review as soon as they have access to REVMOD, independently from the preliminary consultation. The Focal Point of the country under review is invited not to “vote to close” the Step A (in other words, not to submit the questionnaire for review) before the preliminary consultation has taken place, as a decision about the language(s) the review will be conducted in would first need to be made.
The questionnaire, negotiated and adopted by the Conference of the Parties in its resolution 10/1, is available online. While the preparation of the answers to the questionnaire can be done offline, it is important that the final submission is done using REVMOD, the platform that UNODC has developed to facilitate the review process and that was adopted by UNTOCCOP resolution 10/1.
If you face problems in uploading the answers in the system, please contact us at unodc-revmod@un.org.
No, there is no word limit. However, States parties under review are invited to bear in mind considerations related to accessibility of the provided information and aim towards clear and concise answers.
Yes, all questions are to be considered as mandatory.
Relevant information/ legislation needs to be submitted in one of the working languages of the review and can be included in REVMOD through:
The deadline you can see in REVMOD in the above situation, is based on the indicative timelines of the review process included in Annex I of resolution 10/1. Considering that one/more of the participating States parties has not yet appointed its focal point, the official deadlines of the review have not been formalized yet. Once the three countries have appointed their focal point, the Secretariat will contact you for the preliminary consultation and, in that context, a different deadline will be agreed on and reflected in REVMOD.
The UNTOC Review Mechanism is an intergovernmental process, governed by the Procedures and Rules. Should one of the countries involved wish to revise the originally agreed timeline, they are invited to timely contact the counterparts and ensure that any change is duly reflected in the appropriate section for the preliminary consultation in REVMOD.
No, there is no word limit for the self-assessment questionnaire.
In drafting their written inputs, States parties should consider the following word limits foreseen by the Procedures and Rules:
In general, when drafting the written feedback, the reviewers may wish to consider the opportunity to analyze the answers provided by the State party under review and consider drafting a first set of successes, good practices and challenges they may have encountered in the implementation by the State party under review. The identification of successes and challenges will be further discussed at the stage of drafting the lists of observations.
