The Legal Advisory Programme
The Mandate |
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In 1990, the General Assembly resolved that: "the United Nations shall provide expertise to requesting countries to establish the legislative and administrative frameworks for the ratification and effective implementation of the" United Nations Drug Control Conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988. Since then, UNODC's Legal Advisory Programme (LAP) has provided a wide range of legal assistance services to requesting Member States to help them to:
- Establish adequate, functional legal and institutional frameworks for drug control; and
- Effectively implement international drug control conventions.
Without adequate legal frameworks and the know-how to effectively implement the conventions, international drug control efforts are seriously undermined. Most countries now have the basic laws and machinery in place to implement the 1961 and 1971 conventions. Far fewer can yet effectively implement the 1988 Convention, particularly its international justice system cooperation provisions. Many States needed to change not only their laws, policies, practices and procedures, but also the way their healthcare and justice systems developed, coordinated and shared cross border casework. Major changes to old legal frameworks became necessary to implement not only the UN Drug Control Conventions, but also many common provisions of other related regional and international drug, crime and terrorism instruments.
Activities |
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UNODC's Legal Advisory Programme delivers its legal assistance services through a global project and through various country and regional projects. The assistance services are tailored to meet each country's specific needs:
Current legal priority activities are focused on:
- Countries needing legal assistance to meet their UNGASS law-related 2003 targets, and Millennium Declaration commitments.
- Source countries and countries along main drug, precursor and money laundering routes in Asia, Latin America and civil law tradition counterparts.
- Countries with significant unresolved drug-abusing offender crime problems.
Service delivery in the field is by a decentralized team of UNODC legal advisers, based in Vienna (Austria), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Bogota (Colombia) and Bangkok(Thailand). Their collective experience covers all major legal systems. A small, dedicated support staff team and associate experts underpin the work. The impact of UNODC legal assistance services since 1990 include:
- Over 156 UN Member States have received UNODC legal assistance directly or indirectly, through legislative drafting assistance, participation in UNODC legal workshops or receiving training assistance;
- Since becoming a UNODC Legal Advisory Programme assisted States:
65 became party to the 1988 Convention, 49 to the 1971 Convention, and 42 to the 1961 Convention as amended; - 68 States have adopted modern drug control legislation in line with the Conventions with assistance from LAP -- similar legislation is before parliaments or governments in a further 30 States;
- Over 2,400 judges, magistrates, prosecutors, senior law enforcement officials and other key officials from 160 countries have benefited from the programme's competency development and case-based cross border judicial co-operation problem-solving programmes.