Third Committee – Agenda item 109 “Crime prevention and criminal justice”
3 October 2022
Statement of Italy, delivered by Ambassador Maurizio Massari, Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Mr. Chair,
Italy aligns itself with the statement made by the European Union. I wish to add the following remarks in our national capacity.
Next week, as in past years, Italy will submit to this Committee a draft resolution on the UN Programme on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
With your cooperation and through open, transparent and inclusive negotiations, we hope to build successfully on last year’s Resolution, which was co-sponsored by more than 100 delegations, to reaffirm our collective commitment in the prevention of and the fight against all forms of crimes. I want to take today’s opportunity to mention some key elements, which will find expression in our proposal:
- the importance of follow-up mechanisms and processes with regard to the Kyoto Declaration;
- the emphasis on access to justice for all, in particular, for the most vulnerable categories, which is prominent in the Kyoto Declaration and key to reach target 16.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. We wish to propose this as a topic for the High-Level Debate for the 77th session;
- the importance of policies targeted at young people;
- the importance of working on the prevention of gender-related violence, and, in particular, killings of women and girls;
- the relevant developments resulting from the work of the two crime-related thematic commissions in Vienna – the CCPCJ and the CND – ;
- the work ahead of us in strengthening the efforts against terrorism, starting with the new Global Programme on preventing and Countering Terrorism of the UNODC and with a special focus on the protection of victims’ rights.
We are looking forward to fruitful discussions on these topics within this Committee and, in order to put our commitments into practice, we are keen to continue our long-standing cooperation with UNODC, and all other relevant international institutions.
At the same time, we strongly believe that the intergovernmental process can be enriched by the open and substantial participation of the organizations representing civil society – NGOs, academia and the private sector – .
The contribution can be particularly relevant in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice, to better protect victims’ rights, but also the human rights of the perpetrators of criminal actions and to focus on how best to safeguard the most vulnerable groups.
Mr. Chair,
Let me conclude by recalling that 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the killings of Judge Giovanni Falcone and Judge Paolo Borsellino.
The UN Convention against transnational organized crime, the Palermo Convention, was inspired by the intuitions developed by these two heroes and other prominent Italian anti-mafia magistrates and by the idea that, in order to fight against organized crime, international cooperation is vital to the promotion of the rule of law at a domestic level.
Today, 20 years after the entry into force of the Palermo Convention and its Protocols, we must continue to work on their full implementation. Italy is strongly committed to ensuring the operationalization of the review mechanism of the Convention, adopted in 2018.
Thank you.
