Transnational crimes are crimes that have actual or potential effect across national borders and crimes which

are intra-State but which offend fundamental values of the international community.[1] The term is commonly used in the law enforcement and academiccommunities. The word "transnational" describes crimes that are not only international (that is, crimes that cross borders between countries), but crimes that by their nature involve border crossings as an essential part of the criminal activity. Transnational crimes also include crimes that take place in one country, but their consequences significantly affect another country. Examples of transnational crimes include: human trafficking, people smuggling, smuggling/trafficking of goods (such as arms trafficking and drug trafficking and illegal animal and plant products and other goods prohibited on environmental grounds (e.g. banned ozone depleting substances), sex slavery,terrorism offences, torture and apartheid. Transnational organized crime (TOC) refers specifically to transnational crime carried out by organized crime organizations. Transnational Crimes may also be crimes of customary international law or international crimes when committed in certain cricumstances. For example they may in certain situations constitute Crimes against humanity. Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings mainly for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor. Other purposes can be extraction of organs, or tissues[1][2] or even surrogacy or ova removal[3] The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (also referred to as the Trafficking Protocol) was adopted by the United Nations in Palermo, Italy in 2000, and is an international legal agreement attached to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The Trafficking Protocol is one of three Protocols adopted to supplement the Convention.[4] The Protocol is the first global, legally binding instrument on trafficking in over half a century and the only one that sets out an agreed definition of trafficking in persons. The purpose of the Protocol is to facilitate convergence in national cooperation in investigating and prosecuting trafficking in persons. An additional objective of the Protocol is to protect and assist the victims of trafficking in persons with full respect for their human rights. The Trafficking Protocol defines human trafficking as: (a) [...] the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs; (b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used; (c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered trafficking in persons even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article; (d) Child shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.[5] People smuggling (also called human smuggling) is defined as "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents".[1] The term

is understood as and often used interchangeably with migrant smuggling, which is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime as "...the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a state party of which the person is not a national".[2] The practice of people smuggling has seen a rise over the past few decades and today now accounts for a significant portion of illegal immigration in countries around the world. People smuggling generally takes place with the consent of the person or persons being smuggled, and common reasons for individuals seeking to be smuggled include employment and economic opportunity, personal and/or familial betterment, and escape from persecution or conflict. Unlike human trafficking, people smuggling is characterized by the consent between customer and smuggler a contractual agreement that typically terminates upon arrival in the destination location. Smuggling operations are complex, working within networks of many individual players. As smuggling operations and its underlying infrastructure becomes increasingly intricate, so do the issues surrounding the matter of people smuggling. With major and minor players spanning the globe, people smuggling poses a significant economic and legal impact on society, and solutions to the problem of people smuggling remain contested and under continued debate and development. Arms trafficking, also known as gunrunning, is the illegal trafficking or smuggling of contrabandweapons or ammunition. What constitutes legal trade in firearms varies widely, depending on local and national laws. The 1997 Report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms provides a more refined and precise definition, which has become internationally accepted. This distinguishes between small arms (revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, submachine guns, assault rifles, and light machine guns), which are weapons designed for personal use, and light weapons (heavy machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, portable anti-tanks guns, recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, and mortars of calibres less than 100 mm), which are designed for use by several persons serving as a unit. Ammunition and explosives also form an integral part of small arms and light weapons used in conflict.[1]

Drug trafficking Introduction

Drug trafficking is a global illicit trade involving the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws. UNODC is continuously monitoring and researching global illicit drug markets in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their dynamics. Drug trafficking is a key part of this research. Further information can be found in the yearly World Drug Report. At current levels, world heroin consumption (340 tons) and seizures represent an annual flow of 430-450 tons of heroin into the global heroin market. Of that total, opium from Myanmar and the Lao People's Democratic Republic yields some 50 tons, while the rest, some 380 tons of heroin and morphine, is produced exclusively from Afghan opium. While approximately 5 tons are consumed and seized in Afghanistan, the remaining bulk of 375 tons is trafficked worldwide via routes flowing into and through the countries neighbouring Afghanistan.

The Balkan and northern routes are the main heroin trafficking corridors linking Afghanistan to the huge markets of the Russian Federation and Western Europe. The Balkan route traverses the Islamic Republic of Iran (often via Pakistan), Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria across South-East Europe to the Western European market, with an annual market value of some $20 billion. The northern route runs mainly through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (or Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan) to Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. The size of that market is estimated to total $13 billion per year. Sexual slavery is the slavery of unwilling people who are coerced into that condition forsexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation [1] of various international agencies. Sexual slavery may include single-owner sexual slavery, ritual slavery [citation needed] sometimes associated with certain religious practices , slavery for primarily non-sexual purposes but where non-consensual sex is common, or forced prostitution. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action calls for an international response in order to attempt to eradicate sexual slavery on the basis that it is a human rights issue. "Terrorist" redirects here. For other uses, see Terrorist (disambiguation).

United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the former World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Terrorism

Types[show] Tactics[show] Definitions History

Incidents

Terrorist groups[show] State terrorism[show] Organization[show] Fighting terrorism[show]

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, often violent, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no legally binding, criminal law definition.[1][2] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for a religious, political or, ideological goal; and deliberately target or disregard the safety of noncombatants (civilians). Some definitions now include acts ofunlawful violence and war. The use of similar tactics by criminal organizations for protection rackets or to enforce a code of silence is usually not labeled terrorism though these same actions may be labeled terrorism when done by a politically motivated group. Perhaps,[3] it is less oppressive in itself than through the effects of the precautions taken to protect its likely victims.[4] The word "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged,[5] and this greatly compounds the difficulty of providing a precise definition. Studies have found over 100 definitions of terrorism.[6][7] The concept of terrorism may itself be controversial as it is often used by state authorities (and individuals with access to state support) to delegitimize political or other opponents,[8] and potentially legitimize the state's own use of armed force against opponents (such use of force may itself be described as "terror" by opponents of the state). [8][9] Terrorism has been practiced by a broad array of political organizations for furthering their objectives. It has been practiced by both right-wing and left-wing political parties,nationalistic groups, religious groups, revolutionaries, and ruling governments.[10] An abiding characteristic is the indiscriminate use of violence against noncombatants for the purpose of gaining publicity for a group, cause, or individual. The symbolism of terrorismcan leverage human fear to help achieve these goals. [11]