[essex.ac.uk] The role of the G8 is under-studied within the current academic literature on international norms against transnational organized crime and more recently, against terrorism. This gap in the literature is essentially due to the lack of transparency of the G8’s activities and the high degree of confidentiality that surrounds the G8’s expertise in the field. The notion of ‘transnational organized crime’ appeared officially within the G8’s discourses in the 1994 Naples Summit communiqué [1]. One year later, at the Halifax Summit in 1995, the G8 leaders adopted a statement describing organized crime as a growing threat to the security of their countries. They went on to establish a group of senior experts who submitted 40 recommendations at the following Summit in Lyon in 1996. These experts are since referred to as the ‘Lyon Group’.

The Lyon Group was created for the purpose of establishing norms and recommendations for the G8’s member states and the international community as a whole [2]. Between the creation of the Lyon Group in 1995 and until 2001, the Lyon Group mainly gathered officials form Justice, Interior and Foreign Affairs G8 Members State departments. On September 19, 2001, a few days after the 9/11 attacks, the G8 heads of State and government issued a declaration that advocated the fusion of the Lyon Group and the Roma Group, the G8’s experts group on counter-terrorism. Since 2002, the Lyon Group and the Roma group have been merged and are since referred to as the Lyon/Roma Group. The Lyon/Roma Group works at the international level, and its meetings organized three times a year by the country that hosts the Summit.

The role of these experts involves working together on the possibilities of international cooperation in a very pragmatic way; it aims at enhancing collaboration and thus focuses on legal and law enforcement instruments. The work led by these actors is therefore clearly meant to be complementary to what is carried out elsewhere, in other International Organizations such as the UN, the FATF, the OECD and the EU [3].
Nevertheless, this strategy is rather ambiguous, as the Lyon Group has, at times, gone beyond its complementary role and played a role of impulsion and framing in other international arenas.

The circulation of G8 norms is indeed highly facilitated by the fact that this arena constitutes an exceptional platform of communication. Three EU countries, one influential Asian country, North America countries and Russia are all equally represented within the G8. Moreover, although the involvement of the EU Commission is often forgotten, the Commission has been de facto the ninth member of the institution since the very beginning, in 1977. Regarding the issue of transnational organized crime, EU Commission observers participate at every level of the G8 system: G8 experts and working groups and ministerial delegations.

Some of the EU observers largely recognize the central role the G8 plays in its capacity impulsing what is done within the EU and in including countries such as Russia, Japan and most importantly the US into international coordination.

Furthermore, G8 experts meet three times a year within the G8 system; some of them gather again within EU delegations, for those who are also members of the EU, in OECD delegations or UN delegations. This mobility, from one working group to the other, across national boundaries and international bodies, is part of the explanation as to how norms circulate and are promoted at the international level. G8 recommendations and ‘best practices’ are conceived as ready-touse guidelines, and from 1995 until 2001, the Lyon Group has been very active in promoting tools and measures in the international fight against transnational organized crime [4].

The restructuration of the Lyon Group in 2001, giving birth to the Lyon/Roma Group, led to considerable changes in the socio-professional repartition of the expertise provided. Whereas before 9/11 there was a kind of equilibrium in number within the Lyon Group between the officials coming from Justice, Foreign Affairs and Law Enforcement services and agencies, the officials coming from Interior, Police and Intelligence services represent now more than 70% of all the Lyon/Roma Group’s participants. The setting-up of this new repartition is certainly a part of the explanation as to why terrorism has become the first priority of the Lyon/Roma Group since 2002. It also provides an explanation as to why more preventive and proactive-oriented strategies, specifically concerning law enforcement techniques, have been recently adopted and promoted by the Group. The elaboration of “best practices” concerning the development of biometrics and their use in travel documents, the enhancement of special techniques of investigation, the sharing of information and databases, including DNA information, and the fight against terrorist financing has been at the core of the G8 experts’ activities.

Even though the G8 Lyon/Roma Group experts are very discreet and none of their activities get publicized, careful researches demonstrate that the G8 has been active since 1995 in framing the global fight against transnational organized crime and more recently against terrorism. Of course, it does not mean that the G8 has had a decisive role in the international arena, but it rather show how complex and challenging it is to map the international bodies involved in the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism and trace the genesis of these international norms, as the modalities of mutual influences are numerous and multiple.

Endnotes:

1. All the communiqués since 1975 are available on the University of Toronto website: www.g8.utoronto.ca.

2. SCHERRER A., La production normative du G8 face à la criminalité transnationale organisée. La force du discours, le poids de l’expertise, PhD. Dissertation, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, 2007; SCHERRER A., The G8 against Transnational Organized Crime, Ashgate, under preparation (2009).

3. SCHERRER A. (2005), « Le G8 face au crime organisé », G8 Governance, 11 (available online).

4. In the field of anti-money laundering, for instance, see SCHERRER A. (2006) « La circulation des normes dans le domaine du blanchiment d’argent : le rôle du G7/8 dans la création d’un régime global » Cultures & Conflits, 62, pp.129-148.

Source: http://www.essex.ac.uk/ECpR/standinggroups/crime/documents/SGOC_Vol7_2.pdf