The 24th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
UNAFEIPRESENTATION
by Mr. YAMASHITA Terutoshi, UNAFEI Director
Re: Implementing the Doha Declaration: paving the way to Japan
Thank you, Mr. Chairman,I.
IMPORTANCE OF IMPLEMENTATION
The 13th Crime Congress and the resulting Doha Declaration place
importance on the significance of promoting the rule of law and combating andaddressing crimes such as corruption, terrorism, violence, trafficking in persons,etc. The Doha Declaration is a strong global statement on the need to promote
the rule of law and the importance of the UN standards and norms in the field ofcrime prevention and criminal justice. As many states have noted, the next
step is the “implementation” of measures ensuring that the rule of law isrespected throughout the world.
II.

LESSONS FROM JAPAN’S EXPERIENCE
But implementation is easier said than done. Beginning in the late
1800s, Japan modernized its legal system in two stages over the course of 80years.
Japan’s first modern legal system—based on principles of civil
law—took 50 years to develop. The present system, which combined the civil
law system with aspects of the legal system of the United States, took a further
30 years since the 1940s to develop. Japan now embraces the rule of law andjudicial independence. Japan was fortunate because it had sufficient time tocatch up with the global trends. These days, however, developing countries
need to modernize their justice systems more quickly.
III.

KEY POINTS OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
International cooperation, technical assistance and capacity building in
the field of crime prevention and criminal justice play important roles in thepromotion of the Doha Declaration and the UN standards and norms. Technicalassistance will help developing countries overcome challenges facing theircriminal justice systems as well as shorten the period of implementation if done
efficiently and properly, as follows.
First, technical assistance should only begin when a recipient country1

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UNAFEI

recognizes its necessity and significance. This is related to the issue of“ownership”. Recipient countries must maintain ownership of their own
development, and donors must provide assistance by maintaining andpromoting recipient-country ownership throughout assistance projects. In thelegal field, ownership must be respected; otherwise the sovereignty of each
recipient country would be infringed.
Second, duplication of technical assistance should be avoided. Since
one donor cannot provide all technical assistance in the legal field to a recipient
country, several donors are invited to assist the recipient. When donors offer
assistance in the same field, there is a risk that certain training programmes
might contradict each other. Likewise, if a donor stops technical assistance inthe course of a project, the recipient country tends to revert to its old practices.
To avoid these problems and to seek the possibility for seamless technicalassistance, donor coordination is also necessary. Moreover, cooperation
among donors would create opportunities for assistance when a project isdifficult for one donor alone. Thus, donor coordination and cooperation are
inevitably needed. At the end of this presentation, I will touch upon this point by
sharing an example of a joint-technical-assistance project to be carried out by
the UNODC and UNAFEI.
Third, in order for technical assistance to be accepted and to take root, it
should be tailor made for the recipient society. This view is shared among
donor countries, but this is not the case for some legal counsel dispatched as
experts to recipient countries. Some have said that technical assistance waseasy because success in an Eastern European country would be applicable toan Asian country. However, social conditions, like history, economy, culture andcustoms, are different from one country to another. These differences entail aunique approach and a transition period prior to achieving the expected goals.
This approach will enable recipient countries to understand and accept thetechnical assistance received, and will help the assistance become rooted in therecipient society. This will result in facilitating recipient-country ownership andsustainable development, even after donors end their technical assistance.
IV.

UNAFEI’S CONTRIBUTION
Let me move on to the activities and contributions of UNAFEI.
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UNAFEI

A. About UNAFEI
For those unfamiliar with UNAFEI, we are a United Nations regional
institute, established in 1962 by agreement between the United Nations and theGovernment of Japan, with the aim of promoting the sound development ofcriminal justice systems and mutual cooperation. As a United Nations Crime
Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme Network Institute, UNAFEI, relying
on the administrative and budgetary support of the government of Japan, has
supported the UNODC primarily by providing training courses and seminars forcriminal justice personnel.
In selecting the themes of its courses and seminars, UNAFEI matches
the needs of the participating countries with the priority areas of the United
Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme, as identified by theGeneral Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and the Commission.
UNAFEI’s alumni form a strong international network, which now
consists of more than 5,000 former participants from over 135 countries. Manyalumni have been serving in important positions within their governments andhave been playing leading roles in the field of criminal justice.
B. UNAFEI’s Contributions in the Coming Years
1. Rehabilitation of Offenders and Public Participation
The Doha Declaration stresses the need to implement UN standards
and norms. In this regard, UNAFEI has been focusing on the implementation ofthe Bangkok Rules and helped co-organize Workshop 1 at the 13th Congress.
UNAFEI will do its part to promote and disseminate the Doha Declaration, aswell as the official report and panelists’ papers of Workshop 1.
The Doha Declaration announced that the 14th Crime Congress will behosted by the government of Japan in 2020. As the PNI member in the hostcountry, UNAFEI hopes to play an active role in the preparations for the next
Congress, including the coordination and planning of workshops, as UNAFEI
has done for past congresses.
This year marks the 25th anniversary since the adoption of the Tokyo
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Rules on non-custodial measures by the United Nations General Assembly.
UNAFEI is very proud of its involvement in formulating the first draft of thoserules. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that UNAFEI has continued to focus
on the implementation of non-custodial measures and community-based
treatment as some of the most important issues in the field of crime prevention
and criminal justice.
In July 2014, UNAFEI hosted the First Asian Volunteer ProbationOfficers Meeting, which is the first known gathering of volunteer probation
officers from the Asian region and beyond. In February 2015, UNAFEI and theThai government jointly held a seminar on promoting community-based
treatment in the ASEAN region. The seminar motivated the countries inattendance to further develop public participation in community-based treatment.
UNAFEI is well aware that continuous activities in this field are expected by theregional members to enhance and promote the rehabilitation of offenders.
2. Juvenile justice system
Workshop 1 also discussed various issues relating to children in conflictwith the law. In the context of the vulnerability of youth, juvenile justice systems
and treatment of juvenile offenders should be subjects of deeper discussion inconsideration with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for theAdministration of Juvenile Justice ("The Beijing Rules"). Thus, UNAFEI willhold international training courses and seminars on juvenile justice next year.
3. Promotion of the rule of law, the culture of lawfulness and anti-corruption
Government officials must gain the public trust by maintaining theirintegrity; otherwise the rule of law will collapse. The rule of law will be upheldand maintained when both government officials and citizens abide by the law.
In this sense, a culture of lawfulness should be promoted not only as a part ofschool education but also as a part of life-long education.
Considering the importance of anti-corruption measures, UNAFEI has
conducted anti-corruption training, known as the UNAFEI UNCAC Training
Programme, for 15 years since 2000. Furthermore, UNAFEI began holding the“Regional Seminar on Good Governance for Southeast Asian Countries” in 2007.
The seminars have been held in Bangkok, Manila, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur, twice
4The 24th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
UNAFEIin each location, through 2014. These are on-going programmes, and theJapanese government fully recognizes their significance.
All of these programmes provide for the capacity building, training anddevelopment of government officials, and they broadly promote the rule of law anda culture of lawfulness that support human rights..
C. Country-focused trainings and seminars and donor cooperation
In addition to international courses and seminars, which involve
government officials from many different countries, UNAFEI has also provided
country-focused technical assistance, for example, to the People’s Republic ofChina, Kenya, the Philippines, and so on. A regional training course focusing
on eight countries in West Africa was also held in 2014 and again this spring.
Now I would like to touch upon our most recent country-focusedtechnical assistance, which is an example of donor cooperation between
UNAFEI and the UNODC.
The UNODC had launched an overall criminal justice reform programmefor a country in Southeast Asia; including prison reform which requires aparticularly discreet and subtle approach because of the sensitivity of the subjectmatter. UNAFEI had already gained a certain amount of trust from thecountry’s prison authorities through the participation of some officers in several
international training courses. UNAFEI was willing to provide concrete support
for improving the capacity of the country’s prison personnel. Through thecontinual exchange of information, the UNODC and UNAFEI decided tocollaborate on this project. This project came about because of the overallreform programme agreed to between high level officials of both the UNODC
and the recipient country, as well as the good working relationship between
UNAFEI and the recipient country’s prison department.
At present, what has been decided is to hold a seminar this year, the aimof which is to improve prison management in line with international standards byenhancing the capacity of senior and mid-level staff of the country, including theupdated version of the Standard Minimum Rules (SMR). Thus, the seminar willcontribute to the development of the prison system in the country as well as5

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promote the rule of law in line with the Doha Declaration.
step will result in close collaboration in the future.

We hope this firstIn closing, let me reassure you of UNAFEI’s continued support for theUN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme.
Thank you very much for your attention.

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