NCJ Number
190730
Journal
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Volume: 24 Issue: 5 Dated: September/October 2001 Pages: 377-387
Date Published
2001
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This article discusses trends in transnational organized crime in Europe.
Abstract
Since the end of the Cold War, internal conflicts in the developing world have doubled in number. Wars are no longer between states but are civil, guerrilla, or involve separatist and ethnic violence for territory or government. All these conflicts are rooted in social exclusion, which in turn generates political, racial, and religious resentment. Where national borders have been redrawn, those who nominally hold power do not enjoy the trust of all segments of the population. Where authority is eroded and the state is weak, terrorism and organized crime activities become a means of making war without declaring it -- a state of permanent low intensity conflict. Transnational crime is crime that violates the laws of more than one state. The growth of networks has strengthened the links between illicit markets in different commodities as well as relations between individual groups within the criminal world. The blurring of boundaries between terrorism and organized crime has been accompanied by another blurring of distinctions -- that between licit and illicit operations. There exist many forms of threat and possible terrorist or organized criminal scenarios from a European perspective. They are unresolved internal conflicts and distorted state development in East and Southeast Europe; deliberate strategies of destabilization or terrorism by substate groups; and consolidation of transnational organized crime through strategic alliances. One of the most important legal instruments in the future will be the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Among its provisions are the criminalization of participation in an organized crime group, actions against a wide range of illicit trafficking activities, and measures to prevent and repress criminal penetration of the legal sector. 34 notes