International crime, executions, crime victims discussed in Vienna.

• Position: UN Crime Committee

Comprehensive international policies to combat the increasing phenomenon of transboundary crime, including stricter governmental controls against toxic and nuclear waste-dumping in developing countries, were recommended by the UN Committee on Crime Prevention and Control at its tenth session (Vienna, 22-31 August).

The 27-member body, a subsidiary of the Economic and Social Council, asked for adoption of a set of principles to prevent and aid in the investigation of summary executions, stronger safeguards for those facing the death penalty, and measures to beef up assistance to crime victims.

Domestic violence, juvenile delinquency, and UN action to prevent and control crime were also discussed. The theme for the Eighth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, to be held from 27 August to 7 September

1990, was decided: "International co-operation in crime prevention and criminal justice for the 21st century".

Committee Chairman Minoru Shikita of Japan said that guarantees of human rights and fundamental freedoms were worth little if their enjoyment was threatened by "rampant criminality". Wide participation in the session demonstrated growing international awareness of the need to effectively respond to criminal activity, he said.

Crime across borders

In opening the session, Margaret J. Anstee, Director-General of the UN Office at Vienna and Secretary-General of the Crime Congress, said that law enforcement officials, prosecutors and judges all too often risked their lives to enforce national laws, "only to be overwhelmed by the enormous power and resources that organized crime and illicit drug traffickers, in particular, have managed to accrue .

Crime, she said, also "intrudes into the highest levels of industry, investment and banking", in certain instances "Powerful enough to frustrate the quest for a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth and wider sharing of the means of production".

The Secretary-General reported (E/AC57/1988/16) five types of international crime: mafia-type activity with profit as the ultimate aim; transnational terrorist activities; economic offences involving operations in more than one country; illicit import and export of national art treasures; and activities affecting the ecological balance beyond the countries in which they occurred.

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