[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[May 16, 1998]
[Pages 779-780]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Birmingham Group of Eight Summit Statement
May 16, 1998

Drugs and International Crime

    1. Globalisation has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in 
transnational crime. This takes many forms, including trafficking in 
drugs and weapons; smuggling of human beings; the abuse of new 
technologies to steal, defraud and evade the law; and the laundering of 
the proceeds of crime.
    2. Such crimes pose a threat not only to our own citizens and their 
communities, through lives blighted by drugs and societies living in 
fear of organised crime; but also a global threat which can undermine 
the democratic and economic basis of societies through the investment of 
illegal money by international cartels, corruption, a weakening of 
institutions and a loss of confidence in the rule of law.
    3. To fight this threat, international cooperation is indispensable. 
We ourselves, particularly since the Lyon summit in 1996, have sought 
ways to improve that cooperation. Much has already been achieved. We 
acknowledge the work being done in the UN, the EU and by other regional 
groupings. We welcome the steps undertaken by the G8 Lyon Group to 
implement its 40 Recommendations on transnational organised crime and 
the proposals G8 Justice and Interior Ministers announced at their 
meeting in Washington last December. By working together, our countries 
are helping each other catch criminals and break up cartels. But more 
needs to be done. There must be no safe havens either for criminals or 
for their money.
    4. We have therefore agreed a number of further actions to tackle 
this threat more effectively:
    --We fully support efforts to negotiate within the next two years an 
        effective United Nations convention against transnational 
        organised crime that will provide our law enforcement 
        authorities with the additional tools they need.
    --We agree to implement rapidly the ten principles and ten point 
        action plan agreed by our Ministers on high tech crime. We call 
        for close cooperation with industry to reach agreement on a 
        legal framework for obtaining, presenting and preserving 
        electronic data as evidence, while maintaining appropriate 
        privacy protection, and agreements on sharing evidence of those 
        crimes with international partners. This will help us combat a 
        wide range of crime, including abuse of the internet and other 
        new technologies.
    We welcomed the FATF decision to continue and enlarge its work to 
combat money-laundering in partnership with regional groupings. We place 
special emphasis on the issues of money laundering and financial crime, 
including issues raised by offshore financial centres. We welcome the 
proposal to hold in Moscow in 1999 a Ministerial meeting on combating 
transnational crime. We agreed to establish Financial Intelligence Units 
(FIUs) where we do not already have them, in line with our national

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constitutions and legal systems, to collect and analyse information on 
those engaged in money laundering and liaise with the equivalent 
agencies in partner countries. We agreed on principles and the need for 
adequate legislation to facilitate asset confiscation from convicted 
criminals, including ways to help each other trace, freeze and 
confiscate those assets, and where possible, in accordance with national 
legislation, share seized assets with other nations.
    --We agree on the need to explore ways of combating official 
        corruption arising from the large flows of criminal money.
    --We are deeply concerned by all forms of trafficking of human 
        beings including the smuggling of migrants. We agreed to joint 
        action to combat trafficking in women and children, including 
        efforts to prevent such crimes, protect victims and prosecute 
        the traffickers. We commit ourselves to develop a 
        multidisciplinary and comprehensive strategy, including 
        principles and an action plan for future cooperation amongst 
        ourselves and with third countries, including countries of 
        origin, transit and destination, to tackle this problem. We 
        consider the future comprehensive UN organised crime convention 
        an important instrument for this purpose.
    --We endorse joint law enforcement action against organised crime 
        and welcome the cooperation between competent agencies in 
        tackling criminal networks. We agree to pursue further action, 
        particularly in dealing with major smuggling routes and 
        targeting specific forms of financial fraud.
    --We endorse the Lyon Group's principles and action plan to combat 
        illegal manufacturing and trafficking of firearms. We welcome 
        its agreement to work towards the elaboration of a binding 
        international legal instrument in the context of the UN 
        transnational organised crime convention.
    5. We urge the Lyon Group to intensify its on-going work and ask our 
Ministers to report back to our next Summit on progress on the action 
plan on high tech crime, the steps taken against money laundering and 
the joint action on trafficking in human beings. We also welcome the 
steps agreed by our Environment Ministers on 5 April to combat 
environmental crime.
    6. There is a strong link between drugs and wider international and 
domestic crime. We welcome the forthcoming UNGASS on drugs. This should 
signal the international community's determination in favour of a 
comprehensive strategy to tackle all aspects of the drugs problem. For 
its part, the G8 is committed to partnership and shared responsibility 
in the international community to combat illicit drugs. This should 
include reinforced cooperation to curb illicit trafficking in drugs and 
chemical precursors, action to reduce demand in our countries, including 
through policies to reduce drug dependency, and support for a global 
approach to eradicating illicit crops. We welcome the UNDCP's global 
approach to eliminating or significantly reducing illicit drug 
production, where appropriate through effective alternative development 
programmes.

16 May 1998

Note: This statement was made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary on May 16 but was not issued as a White House press release. 
An original was not available for verification of the content of this 
statement.