Expert Preparatory Roundtable: Transnational Organized Crime

This roundtable on transnational organized crime is one of a series of expert consultations that United Nations University Centre for Policy Research will co-host over the coming months to inform the work of the High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism. It has been organized in collaboration with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

Though often operating out of sight, transnational organized crime (TOC) is a long-standing contributor to instability worldwide: it undermines development, fuels and profits from violent conflict and degradation, endangers health, increases inequalities, and leads to fragile and failed state scenarios. As such, TOC is a major inhibitor of the effective delivery of global public goods in a range of key areas, and often operates in the gray areas of global governance regimes. And it is a serious impediment to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals and the objectives of the UN Secretary-General’s Common Agenda.

In order to ensure that the HLAB’s work is sufficiently informed by expertise on TOC, and specifically that its recommendations work to curb the impact of TOC on the delivery of global public goods, this expert roundtable will focus on the following specific questions related to the global governance regime of TOC:

• How does TOC affect key areas of the HLAB’s work, including peace and security, the environment, global financial systems, and health? What is the value proposition for addressing TOC in these arenas?
• What structures, approaches, and institutions have proven effective in combatting TOC? What have been the key challenges? What has not worked?
• What specific proposals could HLAB consider to combat the negative impacts of TOC and help build a more robust global governance architecture? Are there proposals specific to different issues areas (e.g. health, environment, global financial systems, peace)?