United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute

The Emerging Crimes Unit is actively involved in efforts to reduce the impact of emerging crimes such as trafficking in human beings; corruption; crimes against the environment; counterfeiting and cybercrimes. The Emerging Crimes Unit also acts to protect those at most risk of being victimised, including women and underage victims of trafficking; youth at risk or in conflict with the law; and the victims of counterfeiting - both consumers and legitimate producers.

Projects in this area focus on terrorism prevention; security during major events; protection of vulnerable targets; prevention of radicalization; and prevention of illicit trafficking of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials. Activities are specifically designed to offer Member States a comprehensive range of effective strategies to prevent acts of terrorism and to enhance institutional capacity through effective security governance whilst upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights. Operating from a flexible and responsive cooperation platform, the Institute offers advisory services, strategic assistance and action-oriented analysis across a wide spectrum of security topics. UNICRI cooperates with other entities of the United Nations and many other international and regional organizations to deliver coordinated response packages. UNICRI is a member of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact, which seeks to strengthen a common action approach to coordination and coherence in the counter-terrorism and prevention of violent extremism work of the United Nations system, and to strengthen support to Member States, at their request, in the implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, and other relevant United Nations resolutions and mandates. Within this framework, the Institute co-chairs a working group on emerging threats and critical infrastructure protection.

As part of its commitment to sharing knowledge between nations around the world, UNICRI provides many training programmes and educational courses on issues relating to crime prevention and criminal justice. It maintains partnerships with many universities and educational institutes to assist in running its courses. Courses offered include:

• Master of Laws in International Crime and Justice (LL.M.)
• International Summer School on Migration - Challenges and Opportunities for Europe

A special focus is given to education and training in developing countries, with support given to academic and para-academic institutions to assist them in the development of activities and initiatives designed to benefit the public at large. UNICRI also provides tailor-made, specialised training programmes for judicial personnel at the request of Member States.[2]

The centre is a major resource of crime-prevention related material and is available to researchers worldwide for use in the development and implementation of technical interventions and research. It also supports training activities and organises initiatives targeting the general public. The activities of the centre include the collection, analysis and dissemination of legislative, statistical and bibliographic documents in the library. The library holds more than 18,000 monographs; 1,250 journals and yearbooks; tens of thousands of documents produced by the United Nations System and other organisations; multimedia material; and grey literature on crime prevention and criminal justice issues. The centre offers on-line access to all its services, such as the library catalogue, the Criminological Thesaurus, bibliographic databases, directories, full-text articles, and abstracts of monographs.

UNICRI’s Liaison Office in Rome liaises with the host country, the Diplomatic Corps, governmental and non governmental organisations, academic, media and civil society to promote UN goals and objectives. The Office supports the Regional United Nations Information Centre for Europe and provides support to the Secretary General and other senior United Nations officials during official visits to Italy. The Office maintains its own website (www.onuitalia.it), which publishes news related to the UN System in Italian.