[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
