Within the framework of this programme, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) performs various kinds of activities both in cooperation with international criminal tribunals and domestic judicial and training institutions. These activities can be subsumed in the following main areas:

• Supporting the mission and work of international and internationalized criminal tribunals and courts
• Legacy projects and technical assistance to Member States

Supporting the mission and work of international and internationalized criminal tribunals and courts

In cooperation with international criminal tribunals, UNICRI has launched various initiatives aimed at gathering and transferring knowledge acquired by these international institutions to national judiciaries and practicing lawyers and concerned professionals to support the work of international tribunals set up for the prosecution of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

In this context UNICRI boasts of organizing some of the world’s best training programs focusing specially on the development of international criminal law by international courts. Examples include

• The Master of Law (LL.M.) in International Crime and Justice, provided in association with the University of Turin, which caters solely to younger professionals of law and related disciplines, and trains them to specialize in international criminal justice. The success of the Master Program can be marked from the fact that such professionals, upon the completion of their training have often been invited to intern or work by international courts and tribunals such as the ICC, ICTY, ICTR, SCSL, STL, ECCC and various UN agencies and peacekeeping missions
• The International Criminal Law Defence Seminar, a unique training program with an innovative methodology explaining the practice and procedures of international tribunals in a 4 day period to practicing attorneys, judicial personnel, law enforcement and governmental officers working in the area of international justice.

Legacy projects and technical assistance to Member States

The UNICRI approach that has been followed with regard to preserving the legacies of International Tribunals’ comprises of:

• Applied research and cooperation with the Tribunal to identify which type of knowledge and practices are worth to be transferred
• Thorough analysis of the need of the countries involved by the Tribunal’s work
• Elaboration and implementation of capacity building projects

UNICRI, on the basis of its previous experience, has undertaken a wide range of activities aimed at strengthening the capacities of domestic jurisdictions. These include:

• Undertaking a thorough needs assessment of the judiciary and identification of gaps in its capacity to deal with statutory war crimes cases: Most recently, UNICRI has undertaken a careful needs assessment of the jurisdictions of the former Yugoslavia paying particular attention to needs for training and educational activities in the field of International Humanitarian Law, structural problems within the court systems and compliance of court procedures with international standards. The outcome of this endeavor was the 2009 ICTY-ODIHR-UNICRI Final Report “Supporting the transition process”, which provides an in depth analysis of the past capacity building activities in the region and recommendations on how to implement future capacity building programmes.
• Elaborating training programmes and training curricula for legal practitioners on war crimes related issues: In 2008, UNICRI implemented a project aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Bosnian judicial system to deal with war crimes prosecution. Within this framework, a series of trainings for defence counsel were organized in cooperation with the Criminal Defence Section of the Registry of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on several issues, such as plea bargaining and use of evidence in war crimes cases. The choice of topics, lecturers and the preparation of training material was undertaken in close coordination with the local counterparts, to ensure that the trainings met the needs of the target groups.
• Facilitating the transfer of knowledge and expertise to national judiciaries and building national capacities: Together with the ICTY and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE-ODIHR), UNICRI has implemented a joint project entitled “War Crimes Justice Project” (WCJP) which has successfully transferred knowledge on war crime cases from ICTY to the region. As a result of various initiatives to build the capacity of national jurisdiction in handling war crimes cases in 2011, over 800 justice professionals benefited from the training provided. Within the project framework, UNICRI also prepared, in cooperation with the Association of Defense Counsel practicing before the ICTY (ADC-ICTY), a “Manual on International Criminal Defence. ADC-ICTY Developed Practices”, an electronic and knowledge management tool in the nature of a bilingual training and e-learning portal, to facilitate the exchange of information and experience between practitioners from judicial institutions of the countries of the former Yugoslavia was made available. The training and e-learning portal, prepared in partnership with national institutions, contains over 700 relevant legislative tools in the field of war crime prosecutions, international conventions and treaties, relevant national legislation, bilateral agreements on criminal matters. The e-learning portal is being used by national judicial training academics in the former Yugoslavia to educate judges and prosecutors in the field of international criminal and humanitarian law.
• Elaboration of electronic tools and knowledge management systems aimed at supporting the work and education of legal practitioners (such as databases on legislation, databases on past training activities and material, e-learning course on International Criminal and Humanitarian Law etc.): Within the ICTY-ODIHR-UNICRI “War Crimes Justice Project”: the Institute has created a Training and e-learning Portal for the region of the former Yugoslavia. The Portal is an online tool for legal practitioners and judicial training institutions containing:
  1. A Database on Training Activities, containing all the material developed by international and national training providers during the implementation of trainings for legal professionals on war crimes related issues
  2. A Legislation Database, which allows the user to browse relevant legislative tools (criminal legislation of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, bilateral agreements on criminal matters, international treaties and conventions)
  3. An E-learning course for judges and prosecutors on International Criminal and Humanitarian Law
  4. A Manual developed in association with the Association of Defence Counsel practising before the ICTY (ADC-ICTY) titled, ‘The Manual on International Criminal Defence, ADC-ICTY Developed Practices’. The Manual, which is the first of its kind, crystallises the knowledge gained by those practitioners at the ICTY and provides a ‘practical’ perspective necessary to assist lawyers in future war crimes cases wherever they might be practicing

UNICRI has a long tradition of research in organized crime, including its relation to counterfeiting. The topic of counterfeiting is an important part of the work of the Institute due to the growing interest of criminal organizations in this area. Counterfeiting presents a very favorable ratio between potential profits and assumed risks compared to other criminal activities such as drug trafficking. It also facilitates money laundering by providing a front into which the criminal organizations can invest the proceeds of their other illicit activities. For these reasons interest in it has grown exponentially amongst organized criminal groups.

Counterfeiting is now ranked amongst the highest income sources for organized criminal activities.

UNICRI’s programme on Counterfeiting is based on a long tradition of research in matters of organized crime. Counterfeiting is an important part of the work of the Institute due to the growing interest of criminal organizations in this area.

Counterfeiting presents a very favorable ratio between potential profits and assumed risks compared to other criminal activities such as drug trafficking. It also facilitates money laundering by providing a front into which the criminal organizations can invest the proceeds of their other illicit activities. For these reasons interest in it has grown exponentially amongst organized criminal groups.

Counterfeiting is a complex criminal activity involving economic, social and legal elements. Aware of this complexity and of the urgent need of an adequate response, UNICRI developed a specific program based on a multidisciplinary approach which follows two main pillars of analysis:

• The fight against counterfeiting as a response to organized crime;
• the danger posed by some specific products to consumers’ health and safety.

Enhancing Biosecurity and Biosafety

Research and development in Life Sciences have the potential to bring about transformational change for the betterment of society, including through the convergence of advances in fields like synthetic biology, nanotechnology, information technology, the cognitive sciences, and neurosciences. However, the risks related to the misuse  of the technological advances cannot be ignored.

UNICRI has been at the forefront in understanding the potential security risks related to the advances in biology and developing response options.  

The issue of cybercrime has been a focus of UNICRI since 2004, and after years of experience, UNICRI now possesses the skills and know-how to analyze trends concerning cybercrime in its many forms. UNICRI is supported by an extensive, specialized and trusted contact network consisting of private enterprises, international organizations and NGOs, academic institutions, law enforcement bodies, governmental bodies, and other UN agencies.

A sampling of the Emerging Crimes Unit's past activities with respect to cybersecurity and technology misuse can be found below:

Impact of Cybercrime on Business and Economy: UNICRI, with the support of Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, has devoted its efforts to raise awareness regarding the cyber threats that can affect the economies of Italy and Europe, with a focus on small medium enterprises (SMEs).

Combating Cybercrime- Tools and Capacity Building for. Emerging Economies: UNICRI contributed to the World Bank project “Combatting Cybercrime: Tools and Capacity Building for Emerging Economies”, aimed at building capacity among policy-makers, legislators, public prosecutors and investigators, and civil society in developing countries in the policy, legal and criminal justice aspects of the enabling environment to combat cybercrime. (Electronic version will be available soon).

SECURED – SECURity at the network Edge, funded by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP7): the SECURED project proposes an innovative architecture to achieve protection from Internet threats by offloading execution of security applications into a programmable device at the edge of the network such as a home gateway or an enterprise router.

COURAGE – Cybercrime and cyberterrOrism (E)Uropean Research AGEnda, funded by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme (FP7): the COuRAGE consortium will deliver a measured, comprehensive, relevant research agenda for Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism (CC/CT) guided by the knowledge and experience of the highly experienced and exceptionally qualified consortium (17 partners, 12 countries) and Advisory Board members (14 organisations including EUROPOL, JRC and ERA).

Information Sharing and Public-Private Partnerships: Perspectives and Proposals: Sustainable cybersecurity strategies require joint flexible responses to threats and thorough, validated, judicial practices. Current debates tend to juxtapose immediate responses to cyberattacks and legislative efforts to combat overall cybercrime as an either/or dichotomy. Through this Info-Sharing project, UNICRI, is looking into national and international established channels of communication to highlight the complementary nature of legislation and security. The project will examine in particular detail the ways in which policy regulation and immediate responses to threats can interact in the sectors of banking, transport and critical infrastructure. This project has been realized with the support of GIAC Security Essentials (GSEC), in collaboration with European Electronic Crime Task Force (EECTF).

The aim of the project is to map the current landscape of cybersecurity information sharing- and the issues thereof- and to highlight the complimentary nature of legislation and security. The project will focus on the needs and demands of the banking, transport and critical infrastructure industries.

Child Online Protection Initiative: Protecting children online is a global challenge, which requires a global approach. While many efforts to improve child online protection are already under way, their reach has been more national than global. UNICRI has collaborated with ITU Child Online Protection initiative to create an international collaborative network and promote online safety of children around the world.

Hackers Profiling Project:the Hacker’s Profiling Project (HPP) started back in 2004. The HPP aimed to improve the response to ICT crime and the transnational organised crime groups that may be involved in it by outlining the criminal profiles of the different types of hackers, with particular emphasis on their possible involvement in transnational organised crime activities and cyber-terrorism. Through a better understanding of hackers, HPP facilitated the prevention and countering of ICT crime and improved the operational methods that may lead to the identification of cybercriminals. The first output of the project was the publication of the book “Profiling Hackers. The Science of Criminal Profiling as Applied to the World of Hacking”, Taylor & Francis, which came out on 12 December 2008 (1st Italian edition was published by Apogeo in February 2007). While many years have passed since its inception, UNICRI continues to collect relevant resources and materials on the topic.