The 2003 UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC), signed by most Asian countries, provides a common platform for cross-border cooperation against organised crime and illicit markets. Cross-border cooperation and bilateral mutual legal assistance have developed accordingly; in addition, nascent ASEAN institutionalisation of policing and coordination of customs and immigration provide a framework for improved regulatory
responses to criminal markets and organisations. Yet, regional integration and law enforcement capability remain limited, and the lack of effective action to suppress illegal drugs reflects ASEAN’s relatively weak integration regarding the common non-traditional security problems (Broadhurst 2017).
Chapter 10: Criminal innovation and illicit global markets—transnational crime in AsiaResearch Report 10 | Australian Institute of Criminology
Strengthening the monitoring and regulatory control over precursor chemicals should help to reduce the impact of the rise of potent new synthetic opiates. The pharmaceutical industries in India and China are substantial producers supplying traditional domestic medicine markets and are poorly monitored industries. Coordinated action on the suppression of the export of precursor chemicals across the region is essential and could have a significant impact on supply.
Improved regulatory and export tracking controls of these precursors are urgently required (O’Connor 2017).
Over the past 50 years, countermeasures at the regional and national level have focused on the disruption of supply and distribution, increased expenditure on law enforcement and ramping up deterrence measures; yet, little sustained reduction has been achieved, and alternative
‘harm reduction’ approaches, including treatment and decriminalisation and innovative strategies to reduce the demand side, have not developed swiftly.
The Australian Government invests in overseas prevention activities and provides expertise to ensure that law enforcement agencies’ cooperation between Australia and its neighbours brings mutual benefits and provides some bulwark against the predatory conduct of criminal groups. Reducing the harm of black markets in contraband invites a reassessment of the policies that fuel unproductive ‘drug wars’ towards a focus on public health and civil society treatment measures (Amnesty International 2017). Such measures include, in some
jurisdictions, the recent legalisation of medical or recreational marijuana; this, in turn, has been associated with a decline in hospitalisation for opiate overdose (Shi 2017; RAND 2018, Powell, Liccardo & Jacobson 2018). Alternative policies to tackle the harms of criminal markets seek the regulation of recreational drugs. The pursuit of the ‘lesser evil’ of harm reduction would also help to undercut the profits of criminal groups.
References
URLs correct as at February 2018
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