The processes of regional integration in Latin America are facing a stalemate, if not a step backwards. Big political problems have been added to the historical difficulties to foster free trade and custom union in the Mercosur, such as the reluctance of governments to respect the agreement, signed by them, to choose the Mercosur Parliament representatives by popular vote, the conflicts arising from Paraguay’s suspension as a member of the regional bloc, and at the same time Venezuela’s entry, clearly irregular. Moreover, the Latin American Community and its main institutional body, the Latin-American Parliament, continue their eternal impasse and gradually lose capacity and relevance; UNASUR is still reduced to mere occasional meetings of heads of national executive powers, while the newly created CELAC is not able to assert itself as a southern alternative to the OAS, being affected by public disagreements among the leaders of its major member countries. At the same time, the European economic crisis has demonstrated that the functionalist approach to regional integration, that produced such extraordinary outcomes for six decades, has reached its limits, and that the European Union faces a choice between a definitely federal and political deeper integration and the collapse of the eurozone, first, and of the union itself, later.
Together with the frail situation facing the regional integration processes in the world, Latin America suffers from stifling problems of violence, because it added to its sad record of the most socially unequal region that of the planet’s most violent region. The terrible situation in northern Mexico, the Central American gangs and increased drugs use, the drug traffic, the traffic of arms and the human trafficking for sexual slavery and forced labour in other countries, make up a huge regional problem, with negative impact on the lives of the citizens of all Latin American countries, besides becoming, slowly but surely, one of the main obstacles to its economic and social development. In this situation, the only ones that are organized with a supranational logic, that makes the national institutional boundaries obsolete, are the criminals. Protected networks hiding fugitives from justice in other countries, collaboration systems between criminal organizations of different countries, exchange of information, drugs and weapons, are just some of the many strategies that reduce to impotence the national systems in their prosecution of organized crime.
Faced with the proliferation of regionally-structured criminal organizations and the powerful connections with their counterparts in other regions – such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Calabrian mafia and the Russian and Chinese mafias, among many others – the national security mechanisms suffer from a growing obsolescence and are increasingly subordinate and dependent on national political powers, often complicit in criminal networks. Moreover, far from being an advantage in terms of efficiency, the approach of courts, public prosecutors and national security agencies with regard to the places where the crimes are committed, let them vulnerable to corruption and/or to threats by organized crime. For all these reasons, a regional strategy at least is necessary to face up to a crime that is regionally organized, and to create the basis of a regional integration dynamics, necessary to address other challenges that the countries of the region are facing. It is in this context that the proposal to create a regional criminal court against transnational organized crime arises.
The idea is complex and the proposal has to include the discussion of its final working model, as well as the procedure for its creation. While it is impossible to definitely fix all these issues at the beginning of the process, it is necessary and possible to list a number of basic parameters in order to clarify the subject under discussion and establish a framework for further discussion.
1) The Regional Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime should have three branches: a) the Court itself, in charge of the prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of crimes according to the relevant statutes; b) a prosecutor responsible for proposing, initiating and qualifying the processes and submitting lawbreakers to the Court; and c) a police force in charge of investigations and detentions.
2) The Regional Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime should be the offspring of an international treaty signed by countries that so wish, and should enter into force after reaching a minimum set amount of countries, being open to other countries to join later.
3) The promoters of the creation of the Regional Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime should be a network (or coalition) of governmental organizations dealing with these issues – in particular: the fight against human trafficking and human reduction to labor or sexual slavery, and the fight against drug trafficking and drug addiction – and which feel that its creation is a fundamental step that completes their struggle and represents the only chance to stop the advance of criminal organizations throughout the region, without which their great efforts will be reduced to defeat and impotence.
The first step towards the finalization of these ambitious goals was the discussion in the round table organized by Democracia Global - Argentina and the Spinelli Chair of the Consorcio Universitario Italiano para Argentina, in the 5th Altiero Spinelli Symposium about regional integration in a globalized world. Michelle Reyes, director of the South American Coalition for the International Criminal Court, Dr. Mario Ganora, representative of the organization Alameda fighting against human trafficking, Dr. Christian Cao, Professor of Law Integration at the University of Buenos Aires, the MC national representative, Fernanda Gil Lozano, and the President of the Council of the World Federalist Movement and director of the Spinelli Chair, Fernando Iglesias, took part in it.
Throughout the year, the members of Democracia Global held meetings also with relevant actors who for training or activity could bring their expertise to the setting up of a feasible program. Among them: members of the NGOs involved in these issues; specialized academics and members of the national political system with an interest in these issues; and national governments and their ambassadors; in all cases, receiving interest and appreciation for the initiative. According to what was discussed and developed, the strategy proposed by Democracia Global to achieve the creation, as soon as possible, of a Regional Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime (RCC) is divided into five stages.
The first stage involves the setting up of a Coalition of NGOs willing to work with the aim to create the RCC, under the name of Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime with the corresponding development of its juridical personality and a sustainable financial autonomy. Since Democracia Global has been the original promoter of the project and most of the contacts have been established in Buenos Aires, it is proposed to give continuity to the activities of Democracia Global and use its legal framework. Therefore an office of the Coalition for the RCC is being created in Buenos Aires and it is legally based in Argentina.
This first stage should include among its aims the spread of the proposal from the Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime to all the political actors – Argentinean, Latin American and of the world – who can contribute to its development, including civil society organizations; global and regional institutions; national governments; embassies and academic circles, in particular those specialized in legal and political issues with a focus on the problem of transnational organized crime or regional judicial and political integration. Furthermore, the set up of a group of lawyers in charge of starting the preparation of the necessary legal framework for drafting the statute of the Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court will be encouraged.
The second step envisages the continuity of the tasks of the first stage, and the extension of the Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court to the greatest possible number of countries in Latin America, through the articulation of a network and the establishment of local and national branches, physical or virtual, in all the cities and towns of the region where there are forces of civil society willing to embrace the goal of creating the Regional Criminal Court.
The third stage forecasts the continuity of the work of the first and second stages and the development of contacts with the national governments of the countries of the region, calling them for the common task of creating the Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court. Its ultimate goal will be the implementation of the founding meeting of the Regional Criminal Court, in which its operating procedures and statute will be established. The same should establish its aims, the crimes that will be under its jurisdiction, its working bodies, its financing system and the minimum number of countries necessary for the Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court to really enter into force.
The fourth stage forecasts the continuity of the work of the first, second and third stages and all kinds of political and institutional work for the accession of the greatest possible number of Latin American countries to the Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court.
The fifth and final stage provides the continuity of the work of the first, second, third and fourth stages, the ongoing monitoring of the Coalition for the Regional Criminal Court, the spread of its criminal and legal actions, and the continuation of the campaign in support to the accession to it by all Latin American countries. The globalization of the RCC model, through the establishment of similar courts in other world regions, as well as its global expansion with the aim to create a World Criminal Court Against Transnational Organized Crime will also be promoted.
Of course, this five-step plan is not a procedural handbook but a project, which is flexible and able to adapt to the circumstances. In all cases, the high interest that the proposal has aroused in all those who joined it fosters hopes for its concrete achievement. It would be a great way to show that the supranational institutions are not an utopia in the minds of unrealistic thinkers but, on the contrary, a concrete and effective answer to the challenges posed by globalization and to the need for peace, justice and prosperity of the world citizens.
Translated by Laura Roscio