Previous Congresses on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders
Following the dissolution of the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC) by the General Assembly in 1950, the UN continued the former body's practice of holding international conferences on crime control matters. The UN Congresses on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders took place as follows:
1955: First United Nations Congress, held in Geneva, adopts the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
1960: Second United Nations Congress, held in London, focuses on the prevention of juvenile delinquency, prison labour, parole and after-care, and criminality resulting from social change and economic development.
1965: Third United Nations Congress, held in Stockholm, focuses on technical assistance in the field of crime prevention and criminal justice and criminological research for the prevention of crime and for vocational training, and recommended the employment of United Nations regional advisers.
1970: Fourth United Nations Congress, held in Kyoto, discusses social defence policies in relation to development planning, public participation in crime prevention and the organization of research for policy development in social defence.
1975: Fifth United Nations, held in Geneva, discusses, for the first time, the concept of crime as a business (including organized crime). Approves the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which was subsequently developed by the Commission on Human Rights into a Convention.
1980: Sixth United Nations Congress, held in Caracas, adopts a Declaration which recognizes that crime prevention programmes must be based on the social, cultural, political and economic circumstances of countries and form part of the developmental planning process.
1985: Seventh United Nations, held in Milan, approves the Milan Plan of Action; the United Nations Standard Minimum rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice; the Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power; the Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary; recommendations on the treatment of foreign prisoners and the first model bilateral treaty - the Model Agreement on the Transfer of Foreign Prisoners.
1990: Eighth United Nations Congress, held in Havana, approves model treaties on extraditio, mutual assistance in criminal matters, transfer of proceedings in criminal matters, transfer of supervision of offenders conditionally sentenced or conditionally released, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures, the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, the United Nations Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty, the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, the Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors; and the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers. pdf-version
1995:
Ninth United Nations, held in Cairo, focuses on international cooperation and practical technical assistance for strengthening the rule of law, action against transnational and organized crime, and the role of criminal law in the protection of the environment, criminal justice and police systems, and crime prevention strategies as related to crime in urban areas and juvenile and violent criminality. The Congress holds workshops as an integral part of its proceedings which discuss national strategies to combat specific kinds of crime and made recommendations to improve the international response to them.
pdf-version
Report of the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in
English,
French,
Spanish (pdf-versions).
2000: The Tenth United Nations, held at Vienna, delivers the Declaration on Crime and Justice: Meeting the Challenges of the Twenty first Century to the Millennium General Assembly.
International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC)
The UN effort to set international guidelines for criminal justice is not without precedent. Roman law was applied within an empire that covered most of Europe and parts of Africa and West Asia. Later, regulation of social conduct incorporated in Islamic law spread across three continents and still forms an important element of many countries' judicial systems.
One of the earliest forms of cooperation between sovereign nations in law enforcement involved efforts to control piracy on the high seas - but measures were often undercut by nations' practice of chartering freelance privateers to harass their rivals.
In the nineteenth century, as large-scale police forces, court systems and prisons began appearing in the major cities, studies on the causes of crime drew widespread attention to thefield of criminology. A series of conferences in Europe, of which the most notable was the First International Congress on the Prevention and Repression of Crime (London, 1872), brought together experts and professionals from various countries. Leading issues under consideration included the proper administration of prisons, possible alternatives to imprisonment, modes of rehabilitating convicts, treatment of juvenile offenders, extradition treaties and the "means of repressing criminal capitalists".
At the close of the London conference, the International Prison Commission (IPC) was formed with a mandate to collect penitentiary statistics, encourage penal reform and convene further international conferences. It later affiliated with the League of Nations and held three conferences in European capitals from 1925 to 1935. At the last of these it was renamed the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC).
As the League of Nations foundered on the rocks of global conflict leading to the Second World War, so did the IPPC. At the end of the war, the UN was formed with a brief that included the control and prevention of crime. However, the new Organization declined to affiliate with the IPPC for understandable reasons. Seventy-five years of valuable work and research were tarnished by the heavy hand wielded by the Axis powers in the Commission throughout the Second World War. Having furnished a substantial part of IPPC's funding, the Axis powers used the Commission to publicize their bizarre theories on the racial and biological roots of crime and on draconian measures for its control.