Transnational Organized Crime: Multilateral Responses to a Rising Threat

Abstract

The author identifies a growing short-fall in capacities to control the threat posed by transnational organized crime (TOC). TOC exploits the 'sovereign-free' areas of the international system - such as war zones, the internet and private bank accounts - slowly corrupting state, social and global systems of governance. Depending on the nature of the weaknesses in governance it encounters, and on its own strategy (symbiotic, parasitic or predatory), TOC fuels and spreads various public harms, from corruption to armed conflict to disease. Multilateral response capacity remains highly fragmented, as states jealously guard their crime control competences, a central component of their sovereign power. Cockayne argues that this risks ceding increasing control of global markets, population and territory to TOC. But he also suggests that effective multilateral crime control is achievable through the development of harmonized norms and coordination frameworks, complementary international enforcement capacity, and peer review and sanctions mechanisms designed to improve the integration of state and private sector crime control capacity worldwide.