CEFIMUN 2014 Background Guide

Committee: SOCHUM (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee) Topic: Third World Crime History of the committee Of the six main General Assembly committees, SOCHUM is the third. SOCHUM is tasked through the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security, although in contrast with the arms non-proliferation mandate of DISEC, this objective is achieved through consideration of humanitarian affairs and social development. The reach and scope of SOCHUMs activities is broad and often intertwined with that of the other six main General Assembly committees. Of particular note in the jurisdiction of SOCHUM are the necessity to deal with rights of indigenous populations, children, refugees and other minority groups, while also focusing on the issues of poverty, education, food and water shortages, as well as representation in the government. While they cannot enforce sanctions, binding resolutions, or use of force in accordance with all General Assembly abilities, SOCHUM can make suggestions and advisements to the United Nations Security Council as well as to other specialized agencies and nongovernmental organizations. This network system allows SOCHUM to carry out its duties within the rights granted it by the United Nations Charter. History of third world crime At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the prevalent conception of societal change is still encapsulated by the term development (Escobar). Definitions vary, but many emphasize a relatively optimistic view of history (often called modernization) in which development refers to the increased use of technology, increased generation of wealth, and increased attention to democratic procedures and human rights in government. Even critical visions of history recognize the semantic dominance of the term, while disputing its
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content: Marxist scholars typically refer to underdevelopment to describe the negative consequences generated by the exploitative links between richer and poorer countries. Since the 1990s, much attention has focused on rapid increases in global interconnection, but the attendant conceptual frameworkglobalizationhas yet to dethrone development as the dominant perspective on societal change. When understood as modernization, development includes the growth of science, and therefore criminology. Indeed, historical and contemporary descriptions show that the evolution of criminology closely parallels the process of economic growth. Thus, the discipline came into existence as the industrial revolution was being born in western Europe, and subsequently spread as other parts of the world achieved economic progress. Social control, of course, is found in every society. But criminology the application of scientific methods to the crime problem has developed unevenly around the world. The bulk of research on crime is to be found in the wealthiest nations, although wealth is not a perfect correlate of criminological activity.

Current situation Perpetrators of violent crime can impact economies in a variety of ways, from encouraging emigration and brain drain to discouraging foreign direct investment. In many parts of the developing world, violent crime related to gang activity has risen to crisis levels, negatively impacting people, property and business activity. These issues periodically gain media visibility, but the true scope of the problem worldwide is seldom captured. In a globalized world, of course, analysis of criminal activity often cannot be limited to domestic contexts. In October 2012, the issue was spotlighted when the United States Treasury Department formally designated the Mara Salvatruch gang (known as MS-13) as a transnational criminal organization. The El Salvadorean -based group, with an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 members worldwide including a substantial presence in Los Angeles is one of many such organizations whose reach is global but whose negative impacts are felt most acutely in the countries from which they originate. Though the total costs of violent crime in the developing world are difficult to calculate, country-specific estimates highlight the depth and seriousness of the problem.
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According to the United Nations and World Bank, in 2007 violent crime cost Guatemala an estimated $2.4 billion or 7.3% of GDP; the Mexican government estimated the costs of violence in 2007 at $9.6 billion, primarily from lost investment, local business and jobs. The U.N. and World Bank also estimated that, in 2007, Jamaica and Haiti could have increased their GDP by 5.4% merely by bringing down their crime levels to that of Costa Rica. In todays world, it is well accepted that violence exacts a high cost on global development. In about 60 countries over the last ten years, violence has significantly and directly reduced economic growth. It has hampered poverty reduction efforts and limited progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. About half of these countries experience violent conflict or are in post-conflict transition. The other half experience high levels of violent crime, street violence, domestic violence, and other kinds of common violence. Common violence often increases significantly in postconflict countries after large-scale politically motivated violence ends. Such cases include Somalia, Liberia, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Conversely, countries with high levels of common violence have shown tendencies toward sporadic large-scale instability, for example Kenya (in the form of ethnic violence) and Brazil (in the form of urban riots). Why are some countries more prone to social violence than others? Despite the fact that annual deaths due to homicides worldwide outnumber those due to organized armed conflict by a factor of roughly 3 to 1, this question has received very little attention from conflict and development specialists in recent years. As a modest first step in addressing this gap in the literature we draw together insights from the conflict and criminology literatures to develop a model of social violence that accounts for both politicalinstitutional and socio-economic factors. While there is an extensive literature on the socio-economic determinants of social violence, there are only a handful of studies that consider the significance of politicalinstitutional arrangements. Using cross-country estimates of homicides produced by the World Health Organization as an indicator of social violence, we test our model using OLS regression analysis for a sample of more than 120 countries. We find that countries with hybrid political orders experience higher rates of social violence than those with strong autocratic or strong democratic regimes, and that weakly institutionalized
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democracies are particularly violent. We also find robust associations between indicators of poverty, inequality and ethnic diversity and social violence. These results indicate that social and political violence shares some common underlying causes. We conclude by suggesting that the apparent global decline in organized armed conflict and the concomitant rise in social violence in recent decades may be linked to world urbanization and the third wave of democratization in the global south, although further research is required to confirm this hypothesis.

Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What can be done to tackle this type of crime? What is the modus operandi most frequently used by thieves? Which countries are most affected by this type of crime and which objects are most frequently stolen? What is the cost of trafficking in cultural property? Why is trafficking in cultural property the third most common form of trafficking, after drug trafficking and arms trafficking?

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Bibliography Interpol, "connecting police for a safer world." Last modified 9 28, 2013. Accessed October 17, 2013. http://www.interpol.int/Crimeareas/Works-of-art/Frequently-asked-questions. "theaustralian." Last modified 9 28, 2013. Accessed October 17, 2013. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/crime-on-the-rise-inthird-world-un/story-e6frg6so-1111114543034.28/September/13 bosmun, "social,human, and culture committe (novice." Last modified 9 26, 2013. Accessed October 17, 2013. http://bosmun.org/committees/ga/sochum. http://law.jrank.org/pages/970/Developing-Countries-Crime-in.html 2/October/13 http://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/development/crimeviolence-developing-world-research-roundup http://msumun.org/committees/msumun-xi-archive/generalassembly/social-cultural-humanitarian-sochum/ 26/September/1

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