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okay everybody thank you so much for joining um welcome to the fight against illicit trafficking of firearms in latin america and the caribbean a non-cle webinar organized by the aba criminal justice sections international committee in cooperation with the caribbean policy consortium so thank you so much everyone for joining and thank you in advance to our wonderful panelists and moderator for their time today before we start the program i'm going to share some housekeeping information first this is not a cle accredited program so just want to make sure everyone's aware of that and then second you may submit questions at any time during the program using the q a function at the bottom of your screen and we'll have time at the end after the panelists kind of overall presentations to answer questions and have more of a discussion so for all our listeners if you um see if you come up with a question you know just put it in that q a box and we'll try to get to it at the end and then finally this program is being recorded so just want to make sure everyone knows that as well and i'm going to introduce today's moderator and then turn things over to get the program started so our moderator today is bruce sigaris bruce is a partner with the law firm of berliner corcoran and roe llp in washington dc his criminal work has include counseling businesses on anti-corruption and anti-money laundering and preparing due diligence programs he regularly testifies as an expert in international criminal cases involving evidence gathering extradition prisoner transfers money laundering and tax crimes and counseling of witnesses for grand jury investigations since 1985 he has edited the international enforcement law reporter and he's also been an adjunct professor of law at several law schools and has edited and authored several books including ones on international white collar crime cases and materials and international criminal law and as well as hundreds of articles on international law and he's also a co-chair of the criminal justice sections international committee and we're so grateful for his leadership within the criminal justice section and additionally bruce is a fellow with the caribbean policy consortium so again thanks so much for joining and i'll turn it over to the moderator well thank you very much kristen for that generous introduction and also for all your help in um organizing uh the program uh so i'm just gonna say a few words of introduction then i'm going to um introduce the speakers so i can turn the program over to them um the americas have had the highest regional homicide rate in the world with 17.2 homicides per 100 000 inhabitants the global rate being 6.2 per 100 000 inhabitants and approximately 75 percent of the homicides are committed with firearms um indicating the the availability uh and easy access to some of them uh that contribute to high levels of armed violence in the region and also a lot of the uh proliferation of firearms is connected to organized crime um so this webinar then will discuss efforts to combat illicit trafficking of firearms in latin america and the caribbean focusing on the inter-american convention against illicit manufacture and trafficking in firearms ammunition explosives and other related materials which uses the acronym sifta we'll also talk about the protocol against the illicit manufacturing and trafficking in firearms uh their parts and components and ammunition which is um often referred to as the firearms protocol to the palermo convention on transnational organized crime um we'll also hear about what the uh caribbean uh especially caricom and impacts is doing and we'll hear about the lawsuit pending in the u.s district court in massachusetts brought by the mexican ministry of foreign relations against gun manufacturers and distributors so leading us off is going to be um miss simonetta grassi who's the chief of the firearms trafficking section of the united nations office uh on drugs and crime known known by its acronym unodc um in vienna um she's with the organized crime and illicit trafficking branch division of treaty affairs since april 1 of this year prior to that she was the head of global firearms program which was established in 2011 to assist member states in their efforts to counter illicit manufacturing oven trafficking and firearms in their links to other serious crimes as substance matter officer for the firearms protocol miss gracie is also providing secretariat functions to the conference of the parties to the organized crime convention and its working group on firearms miss grassy joined the u.n in 1996 and held several positions both at headquarters and in the field including she was the uh unodc deputy representative in colombia and in the caribbean regional office in barbados uh dealing with a ver a varied uh program portfolio on drugs and crime prior to joining the u.n miss gracie worked as a defense lawyer in italy and as a researcher in criminal law and criminology in the beautiful walled cit um university of urbino um she's been a scholar at the ludwig maximilian university in munich and also at the max planck institute for criminal and comparative law in fryeburg germany she holds a master's degree in law and a post-university degree in international relations in diplomacy uh from the diplomatic academy in vienna she's going to be followed by pierre angeli de luca maciel pierre is a specialist in the department of public security at the oas she's a brazilian lawyer graduated from uspe um university of sao paulo and has a master's in criminology from the university of ottawa she joined the oas department of public security in 2015 and has coordinated projects focusing on criminal justice reform and firearms control she currently supports the implementation of the program of assistance on control of arms and munitions particularly providing legislative assistance to countries and leading the development of the regional communication mechanism on licit transfers of firearms and ammunition she'll be followed by sheridan hill sheridan is the public information officer for the criminal investigations department and criminal records office at trinidad and tobago police service corporate communication unit of the trinidad police service he has he's been an established professional with 33 years experience in the field of law enforcement law caribbean security terrorism research on gangs private security crime and violence caribbean security issues with a strong background on international policy coordination of the u.n security council resolution 1540 which deals with preventing nuclear chemical or biological weapons uh distribution uh he also has worked across four sectors state international organizations academia and private industry he also was a specialist on caribbean security at the oas during 2005-2011 and then batting cleanup is alejandro solerio alecantra he is the legal advisor with the ministry of foreign relations in mexico he's been doing that since 2019 before he was the deputy legal adviser before that he was the head of the section of hispanic and migration affairs um at the embassy of mexico um here and he was also counselor coordinator at the embassy of mexico he has too many degrees to go through them all um he they include law degree uh a degree in public administration an m.a in sociology of the law he's got a couple of llms from u.s universities including university of san francisco and university of houston so let me now turn the program over to simonetta gracie in vienna yes hi and she's going to she's going to try to share her screen yes please let me know if you can see it can you see it not yet um yes we can see it now very clear okay give me just a second to change to the presentation mode oops no one second okay um yes okay can you see it right yes okay so thank you very much for inviting me in representation of my organization as you mentioned i work for the united nations office on on drugs and crime uh and in particular i'm the section the chief of the firearms trafficking section it is actually a relatively new section because before we were under the organized crime section so we are part of the organized crime branch but as a section we are relatively new um i since i am the first one to speak and i i would just like to divide say a few words about who we are and how we also see the the problems of elicit trafficking in the region refer a little bit to the current political process in relation um to this subject matter and then go a little bit more into the actual relevance of the u.n firearms protocol and its convention against transnational organized crime i hope this is fine so just a few words about about us as i said on unodc is the office on drugs in crime that has a long mandate and a long presence in latin america and the caribbean it works in in many different fields related to drugs and crime but in the area of fire specifically there is the global firearms program that we established 10 years ago that aims at helping countries precisely responding adopting effective measures legal instruments illegal frameworks but also operational practical measures to strengthen the criminal justice response so we look at the problem of illicit firearms trafficking primarily through through the angle of um their their their impact i mean they're the criminal law the criminal dimension of of this problem i i will not go much into what we do i just show this slide to give you an idea of how we approach the issue um we work in different areas with member states from providing legislative assistance to implement firearms protocol in the organized crime convention to more practical measures to actually help countries in establishing effective regimes to prevent the elicit the diversion the trafficking of firearms through better measures like marking record-keeping of weapons and we also work a lot with criminal justice with the criminal justice sector meaning by that both law enforcement prosecutors but also customs in the whole chain from detection investigation prosecution adjudication of these crimes and this of course involves an important component which is international cooperation and especially in criminal matters because we speak of an offense that is transnational in nature so this is really a very important component of our work but another one last but not least one is also the promotion of a better understanding on the phenomenon through data collection and analysis and i want to start by this just by giving a little bit some some insights from what ui odc has been researching i mean over in relation to to this subject matter and as you bruce just mentioned clearly and i think this is not um i'm not saying anything new when i say that ing to unodc's global homicide study um it found that uh around half of all the homicides globally are committed with a firearm and this statistic is particularly high in in the american region continent where the numbers are way higher with two out of three victims of homicides meaning about 75 percent of the victims shot with a gun as you mentioned you can see on the screen the the regional differences and and you clearly see how relevant the the problem is in in this region um the study also concluded for example that it is usually the same countries that report not only the largest share of homicides related to organized crime and gangs but also the largest share of male victims the largest share of firearms homicide and most of them located in as i said in latin america and the caribbean um also you know this he produces also the annual world drug report and in its report already in 2016 it found that of course violence resulting from market disputes among drug trafficking organizations um also where particularly little because they involved firearms so it is obvious that firearms play a pivotal role in in the genesis and the perpetration of violence in in the region um if we want to ask ourselves where these arms comes from of course based on our the global firearms study that we published in 2020 many a different large variety of sources were identified but primarily a large and very um important flows of course of the illicit flows come from sorry are between within the american region between um from north america to central america and south america and to some extent also to the caribbean um as you can see the prevalent mechanism for this trafficking as we have seen it in from from the findings of our study it remains the untrait on the one hand so meaning the the the trafficking of small quantities from of firearms across border but in repeated in repeated numbers that in the end become an important amount um and these arms are often also purchased through straw purchases um and it's interesting because several high-level straw purchases cases are also cited in mexico's lawsuit and i think alejandro silo will maybe mention it um and um another emerging reality that has also been identified in the study is this problem of ghost guns that not only in in this region but that make it particularly difficult to detect this type of of trafficking i just mentioned it to give a little framework and to show also the in conclusion the fact that in latin america and the caribbean illicit firearms have a devastating impact on on security and developing development as they are closely linked and exacerbate other forms of crime organized crime but also drug trafficking it accelerates it increases the power of drug trafficking cartels and therefore it is a problem that is per se not only something that we have to look at in isolation but also in connection with the impact that it has on on other forms of crime in particular organized crime and before coming to the protocol itself i want to say a few words about the political process that is ongoing because member states are of course very much aware globally that um that this is a problem and that beyond the adoption of international instruments that have been adopted um now 20 years ago there is an ongoing push at the political level to for countries for member states to do to do more about it so for example um i i will come to the instruments the organized crime convention and the protocol that i mentioned earlier there is they have a governmental intergovernmental process that comes that accompanies this process which is the conference of parties to the organized crime convention and for example i just put on the screen some of the latest extracts from its resolution in 2020 which highlighted again the importance for states to strengthen also at domestic levels some of the measures that are included in international instruments and when i say international instruments i don't mean only the firearms protocol and my colleague angela will from the organization of american states will also speak about the sifta convention but basically there is a call also in the political arena to really urge states to have stronger controls over um the the life cycle the long the entire life cycle of firearms in order to really make it more difficult for these arms to leave the legal circuit and enter the illicit realm so measures such as marking and record keeping but also addressing the root causes of transnational organized crime in order to to prevent and to address this problem in a more comprehensive manner are part of the of the efforts that are being pursued at the political level and i want to mention also that very recently in in april this year no sorry in in february this year the commission on narcotic drugs that is normally invested with drug trafficking with the world drug problem also adopted a very important resolution that acknowledged that um illicit firearms trafficking is also deeply rooted and connected to other forms of crime in particular drug trafficking and acknowledge that for example drug traffickers are heavily arming themselves with firearms that are often illicitly trafficked and it also recognized that there are multiple links between these forms of crime and therefore it is important to address this problem in a more integrated manner and i want to mention this because this is a way also to to acknowledge the relevance of these international instruments that exist that continue to exist and that continue to be relevant for the purpose of of preventing and doing something about this problem now when we speak about the international instruments i mentioned before there is not only the firearms protocol but of course there are various instruments that are extremely important and i want to mention by it first of all the organized crime convention and its protocols and i have put it there sorry before you continued um i wondered if you would want to fix your presentation mode to focus on the current slide because right now we can see next slide too oh you do oh how do i do that let me try i'm wondering um i'm sorry yeah you've got great graphics so i want want the participants i i didn't try if this is better i'm really not suggested display settings is it better no no no it's the same go um try up at the top the display settings tab the display and second i'm just sorry for that i'm really bad with technology um [Music] i think you have to share the screen and then go up on the top there is display settings but while you're sharing so you have to activate the sharing it's usually because you have two screens that's why you give this video so what do i do sorry just again i share the screen number so share the screen like now share the screen as it did before okay one second yes and then you put on present this you see display settings there on the bottom like close to where you you click on the presentation mode at the bottom of the powerpoint there is display settings yeah now to the left close there um well yeah you can do that as well is there so now yeah so now up there up there do you see display settings like for us it show it shows um like upper there really at the bottom oh yeah display settings this what we have push swap present no duplication i think you have you have to push swap presenter view i think the first one oops there you go yeah yeah looks good now it's just on the current slide now i have two screens with exactly the same it's fine but as long as you see it well it's fine sorry okay now sorry about that no no it's good to mention it because that's the aim of the presentation so what i wanted to say just to not to take so much of the time from the others there are relevant instruments the organized crime convention is one that addresses as i said the problem of transnational organized crime there are other instruments that make reference to the illicit trafficking of firearms and then there are different instruments in the field of specifically relating to um i don't know if you see the full screen because i see my picture here and i cannot change it okay um specifically relating to um [Music] firearms which are the firearms protocol but also other instruments like like the amstrad treaty the program of action i'm only referring now to the international instruments um but at policy level at political level also the security council has been invested often on on these issues especially on the linkages between for example terrorist acquiring weapons but also on the linkages to organize crime on this screen what you can see is the firearms protocol client photography is the first global instrument that has been adopted to address the problem of illicit scions it's not the first one because the very first instrument was the sifta convention it was adopted in 1997 and i will not speak about it but the protocol builds on the sifta convention and um what is important about the protocol is not only the fact that it is a global instrument and that is legally binding but that it is intimately linked to the convention against transnational organized crime meaning that the two instruments together provide a framework for states to um prevent but also counter the problem of illicit manufacturing elicit trafficking in firearms what you see on the screen is the current status of accession or ratification and you see in in the americas um many many countries have accept a a party to it not all you see um a few ones are in in yellow um and in light pink are the signatories like canada for example but um what is important about this instrument about the protocol i mentioned already the the political process of the convention of the parties is the interaction between the convention and the firearms protocol in the sense that the convention lays down the foundations for states to counter the problem of transnational organized crime through measures that are then also applicable to specific situations of illicit trafficking illicit manufacturing of firearms which are offenses that fall under the firearms protocol but in addition to the firearms to these offenses the firearms protocol establishes also a framework for preventive measures to as i said earlier to prevent uh to to ensure that countries have the means and the measures in place to have a inadequate control to increase the traceability the the the control over these firearms through marking unique marking record keeping transfer authorization systems but also through measures that would enhance the cooperation among states because as i said earlier when we speak of illicit trafficking we speak of an offense that is transnational it implies a movement that crosses borders what you see now on the screen is the definition that the protocol provides and that's also important because it provides an internationally agreed definition on the term now trafficking in this sense is the movement across borders meaning that it does not specifically refer to the domestic trafficking within the national territory but some countries have also criminalized the domestic trafficking however for the purpose of of of the protocol which is instrument that that it's like the the glue that brings together international consensus about this problem this is the internationally agreed definition that um includes as you say a whole range of of actions from the import the export the sale etc it is quite a broad definition um and that refers to basically non-authorized non-declared movements of or transfers across borders but also such movement includes also firearms that are not marked ing to the requirements of the protocol i just mentioned here again the offences that i established but they are established for state parties to transpose them into their national legislation and what you see there are complementary measures you you see trafficking offenses offences related to firearms but also fences that are in the organized crime convention that are very relevant for the purpose of addressing this problem like participation in an organized criminal group laundering of proceeds of crime we should never forget that every illicit trafficking flow includes often also illicit financial flows and therefore these connections are very important but there are also other synergies that exist with other instruments that i showed before on the screen like the amstrad treaty because um the firearms protocol includes measures that require states to have a system in place for licensing authorizations for the import the export or the transit right but what for example the amstrad treaty provides in addition to the protocol and which i think is a very good complement is that it introduces also assessment criteria it requires the parties to the to the att for example to assess before exporting the firearms or ammunition whether um the firearms in particular could be used to commit or facilitate an act constituting an offense under international conventions or protocols relating to transnational organized crimes so in a way there is a connection between the armstrong treaty and the firearms protocol now i mentioned these instruments because they are connected to each other in complementary but it is also very important to notice and i just want to be very clear about it that that implementation effective implementation of these instruments rests and depends on national domestic transposition meaning that it is it is state depends on the states to the extent to which the states transpose these measures into their domestic legislation and jurisprudence but nevertheless the existence of instruments like the firearms protocol the organized crime convention together or the arm street treaty provide a solid ground work for states to create such offences in the first place but also to create measures um to introduce offenses and criminal law provisions that will help national criminal justice systems to to effectively combat every forms or most of these forms for example i spoke about the armed trafficking well the the definition of illicit trafficking would allow to cover this as well as when we speak of straw purchases um the offenses included in the protocol also require state parties to criminalize the act of aiding abetting facilitating these offenses so it could be argued that also aiding the illicit trafficking could be committed through through facilitating straw purchases um and also the the knowledge or the intention is is of course relevant for the purposes of um understanding what or if there are criminal offences that could be applied at the domestic level so the international instruments although not directly um enforceable they have to go through domestic criminal law they do provide a relevant um background i would say for for the purposes of dealing with these offenses and i would stop here because i see that i'm taking a lot of time but i just wanted to give this this overview of the instruments and also how they can be relevant both for the for addressing this problem of illicit trafficking among states i also forgot to mention that one essential advantage of the protocol that come comes that complements the organized crime convention is that because we speak of a transnational offence states can use the organized crime convention also as the legal basis for the purpose of cooperating among them in criminal matters so this is basically the context in which states can operate in order to address the problem of illicit trafficking thank you very much i stopped here and thank you very much simonetta for that great uh introduction and overview and i'm sure we're going to come back to a lot of what you said in the q a session so let me turn the program now over to pierre thank you bruce and to start i wanted to thank for the invitation on behalf of the department of public security of the oas it's a great pleasure to be here and share a little bit of what we've been doing in terms of the sifta convention and thank you simonetta for introducing the convention and giving me uh all the framework for my presentation now um can you see it on presentation mode yes okay perfect thank you um so i'm gonna try to avoid repeating a lot of uh what's been said as as moneta mentioned uh sifta was the the first legally binding agreement um of course it's a regional convention uh it focused on all the countries in the americas north america latin america caribbean it was signed in 1997 um and we have a great level of addition to this convention which gives a lot of way and strength uh to be the main framework to address the issue of illicit trafficking in the americas 31 out of the 34 oas member states have ratified sifta so they have a legal obligation to comply with the convention and then three other countries uh the three remaining countries of the region have signed it um so sifta uh as simonetta well said um it was the base for the un firearms protocol so it's very similar to these other international instruments that were mentioned by her in terms of the main obligations the countries had committed to establish jurisdiction over criminal offenses particularly the the offense of the illicit manufacturing and they list the trafficking of firearms there are some specific offenses that are derived from those so for instance also to sell a firearm without a proper marking on it that would be considered illicit manufacturing and that's very key since uh marking is essential for us to be able to trace the firearms and be able to identify where are the vulnerabilities and the gaps that lead to diversion to the illicit market so it also mandates the marking of firearms uh record keeping strengthening physical security and stockpile management practices this is very key in the region is one of the main things some of the countries of the region we have some data that indicates that the illicit trafficking itself is not the key problem in that specific country in that specific country most of the firearms were legally imported and then they were diverted once they after the legal importation so they were diverted in the country and that's usually because you don't have strong practices and processes to control the firearms including points of vulnerability in the official and the institutional arsenal of police forces and armed forces that those those firearms are diverted to the illicit market of course improving border controls this is a transnational issue so countries have to cooperate um to make the borders more secure um sifta also mandates the countries to have export import and transit licensing systems that means that for the legal commerce of firearms no countries that have signed sifta should allow any shipment of firearms if all the other countries involved in that process have not issued the corresponding licenses so this is something that it's uh it complements kind of or the att complements this base basis here because it's something very simple on sifta and att will go way more details than this obligation but this is the basis for it and then of course countries should cooperate and exchange information and experience so to implement sifta the convention has more than 20 years so we do have a very well established structure politically sifta is the key document uh to join all the countries in the region to discuss what are their strategies and their priorities we have the conference of state parties as the highest level in the hierarchy of sifta and then we have a consultative committee that meets annually and the consultative committee has points of contact and that's very important more on the technical level so countries can cooperate then of course we have the secretariat pro tempore luckily we have the government of mexico taking the lead on it for the past five years they have leading sifta meetings and really assisting us and making a very integrative work to call attention to this problem and then the technical secretariat that's basically where we work at the ois as the implementing body to support the work of the state parties so we assess them in implementing the convention we have two departments that are responsible for the co-technical secretariat so uh the department of public security where i'm working where i'm going to continue presenting and the department against transnational organized crime we both help the countries to target this issue and essentially at the dps what we work is to better control the life cycle of the firearms since its manufacture until the point of destruction so we support the better control of the life cycle to avoid diversion we also work to prevent risk factors that are associated with more engagement with armed violence so we work in a two-fold approach we have the control of the offer of firearms to limit access to it and then also control and reduce the demand for firearms promoting more a culture of peace so as clear results and outcomes of this sifta process we have the course of action that is in place in the course of action is the document that is approved by the state parties where they detail what are going to be their priorities in the course for the next few years considering the general obligations of sifta we also established a sifta voluntary trust fund the countries have created to support implementation we have a series of model legislation to support the countries in implementing the convention so the idea is to facilitate that the countries can harmonize their domestic legislation to the standards of sifta and then of course the more operational aspects that it would be producing data about the topic with the mandate to do a illicit study or a study on the listed trafficking of firearms in the region and our program the program of assistance and control of arms and ammunition that work with the countries i would try to go through this very quickly and then the presentation can be shared with everyone because i don't want to take a lot of the time so for the model legislation as i mentioned we do have seven model laws each one for one of the key aspects of the obligations of sifta and the goal is for the countries to have a document where they can have that guy to easily implement domestic legislation that is aligned with those obligations and facilitate uh um facilitating uh the the convention being applied in their own countries uh we also have some guidelines and menus all these have been created and approved by their own state parties so it has the political support which is very important as well for the study of the listed firearms trafficking countries have determined that we have to improve the knowledge in the region considering that there is still many gaps and we have four mandates of the general assembly mandating to do that study we do have the global study of firearms the global study is our reference right now but unfortunately because of many challenges including the own capacity of the countries to produce data the idea is for us to be able to focus more on the region and the specificities of the region in this study and we hope that we can do that together with unodc so we don't have double work and we can already take all the knowledge that unodc has consolidated on data production um so the objectives of the study is really to assess the understand the patterns of the illicit trafficking in the region but then also assess the institutional capacities to control investigate and persecute the illicit firearms trafficking the idea is to be able to give the countries a parameter where they can see uh where are they standing considering the region and where they need to go from there what are the key recommendations that they have to follow so they can improve the control and address the listed firearms trafficking and all of that considering that a very real human impact that firearms trafficking has in the region as we've heard with the high levels of homicide rates and the gender perspective understanding that it affects women and men in very different way and also other groups in situation of vulnerability and uh complementary to out of that we also have our program of a system for control of arms and munition this program has was started in 2007 providing more technical assistance to countries to operationally control the firearm cycle so we've worked a lot with marking training and destruction of firearms firearms that were seized and a lot of times the firearms are seized and there is no capacity to properly destroy it and that poses a risk since they stay in institutional storages that are not appropriate to store the firearms safely so we've worked in a first phase in more than 25 countries donating machines marking the firearms also destroying more than 60 000 firearms so we reduced the circulation of firearms and in 2019 we started a new phase of this project with funding from the european union and we are currently implementing it and that new phase has more of the legislative assistance component in addition to all of the other work that we were doing and they also focused a lot on regional coordination um so in terms of legislative assistance we offer to the countries that want a technical review a detailed analysis of their firearms normative framework so that includes the firearms act for the countries that have it the penal code and all the other legislation that is connected with this issue sometimes it's exporting important control so we do that comprehensive review and we present to the countries and analysis of what needs to be strengthened considering the sifta convention which is our key parameter but we also take into consideration the firearms protocol the att if the country has ratified the att so we try to complement with all the international agreements existing and we've worked so far with peru ecuador el salvador panama and jamaica on this reviewing process and then sometimes depending on the needs of the countries there is no like one-size-fits-all approach we work with each country uh to determine what are their needs if we have to assist them drafting a new firearms act or if we have to make suggestions or work with them in the legislative branch to get the firearms approved or the new act approved um so in terms of results for these past three years we've worked with 22 countries in the past three years uh five countries have resist received the legislative assistance and then we have all these other components uh capacity building more than a thousand personnel was trained uh we donated marking machines to ten countries we've destroyed uh more than 37 tons of ammunition and 34 000 of firearms we also improved uh the security conditions of the storages of the for the institutional capacities and we've worked to prevent armed violence working with at-risk youth in honduras and the community leaders doing training for them as well and um as as bruce mentioned when he was presenting me we are also working on developing this regional communication mechanism on the listed transfers of firearms and ammunitions so there is the article 9 of sifta that has that specific uh obligation for the countries to control the listed commerce and the goal here is to be able to close some of these gaps and vulnerabilities in the legal commerce of firearms so we can avoid diversion to the lesser trafficking so the mcta would be able to facilitate the direct communication between the licensing authorities so they can risk they can alert each other about risks they can exchange the information of the license they can make some sort of validation and verification process so this is a very the goal is to be a very easy tool to use but it's a very complex process to develop since there are privacy laws that are hindered sharing information we would have to have agreements with each country so we are working on this very extensive reviewing process that we are developing this with the countries we have 20 countries participating in the reviewing committees and we are developing this framework with them and we hope next year we're going to have the final design to program the electronic solution and i'm going to close now but just to say that we have a new phase of this project approved by the european union it will start right after this phase ends so we hope that we will continue working with the countries until 2025 at least uh with that approach of incurring everything on our legal assistance and working with that twofold approach of the control of the offer and the prevention for the demand and we are also including here a component to develop a central american firearms roadmap based on the good experiences that we had first in the western balkans with the u.n agencies working there and then also we in the caribbean where caricon impacts uh new and lyric have led the development of the firearms roadmap as a tool for the countries to cooperate in an easier way so i know that i've said a lot and i don't want to take more time and i hope we can have a good discussion um in the q a and answer specific questions um thank you so much thank you so much pierre for that great presentation you covered a lot of ground and you gave a perfect transition talking about the attempt for the central american road firearms road map to sheridan i think he's gonna mention the caribbean firearms roadmap so sheridan take it away you're on mute though so at the bottom left of your screen yep right okay now let me see yeah we're seeing that fine okay so you're seeing me clear right yep okay so a lot of what pierre and simonetta mentioned sheridan before you start just uh make the slides bigger i think because we're kind of seeing three in a row right now i am in a little bit of a pickle like simonetta so let me see if i can come out of this and and get back just a minute no oh um kristen could you uh work the slides for me i'm having some yeah do you want me to try yeah i'll try pulling it up okay okay yes next slide so based on what simonetta and pierre did i i hope i don't repeat too much of what was said i'll try not to and my presentation will be more from uh our subject matter expert more practitioners perspective but also a bit of what caricom is doing and what trinidad and tobago is doing both as a regional security leader and also what we're doing here on the issue of traffic trafficking and fans in the caribbean so i'll touch on the caribbean of vulnerabilities the the impact of of of the crime situation the involvement of uh the all the impact of firearms on on crime in the caribbean a little bit about our trafficking issues domestically and what we've done how we've responded to the issue at the global hemispheric regional and national level and then i'll probably make some some concluding remarks next slide so while while i know it's not it's not a class i'm lecturing to it's always important for people to understand when we speak of the caribbean depending on which definition of the caribbean you use you you you you get very different outcomes so if we talk about acs much of those latin american countries are member states of the the acs and then if you if you think of the curriculum definition of of the caribbean it's those member states of those those oas member states plus one non-independent country other people don't realize that there's one non-independent member state of curriculum and then we have the commonwealth caribbean which which is a little less and then you can get into the independent non-independent countries but at stage i think it's important to understand that trenatabago has the lead responsibility for crime and security in the region and as firearms is a as a serious concern to us we've done quite a bit on the issue of of crime and security but in particular on the issue of illicit trafficking and firearms in the region next slide right so as a region we are vulnerable we are vulnerable because of a location between the not just the drug consumed drug producing countries in the in in the south and the consuming countries in north america and and europe we also have and i mentioned later on we also have a number of firearms producing countries in in in latin america and as well as a big our big neighbor without not of not so we are we are also in hurricane matt so we're very vulnerable and we're also in the u.s back door so you you i'm sure most of you have heard of the being in the being the the u.s still border uh and and also we we also yeah so we we we considered at times the third border and really u.s fear of influence so we generally are small caribbean countries are small when compared to our latin american and north american neighbors only haiti jamaica and children tobago has more than one million people um we're multiple island states and that provides a challenge for us to to to secure to patrol our borders because for us we as we are multiple island states you know what you find is that for us we don't have much land land border issues but we have to patrol the coast and which is where most of our drugs and firearms come in and then when you think of countries like belize and and guyana as i mentioned before we're small but if you think of belize and ghana two of the few countries that are that are landlocked those countries are very small populations ghana is 83 000 square miles the port of trinidad which is less than two thousand square miles but the population of guyana is just around 750 000 whereas trina tobago is 1.4 million jamaica is 2.6 so when you think of the of the num the population of the country and the size of the country the challenge where those where those people live and the challenge of the state to to really police their borders and the issue of the inflow of not just drugs and people but also of fires uh i mean and as we're small we challenge the economies are challenged so securities are costly on the take and i spent a number of years in washington so i i understand the issues the cost of security so as we are small and our economies are challenged and we're monocrop societies the issue of providing adequate security for us becomes becomes a a larger problem but for us our main concern really we to a large extent we don't have traditional border security issues so crime is a critical issue for all of us in the caribbean next slide please all right so that you i know you see 2007 world banks that he found that you know the region one of one of the highest levels of crime in the world because we had one of the highest motor rates and we led our manga leaders on various categories of serious crimes and then undp 2012 later on spoke about the impact that those crimes are having on our small fragile economies so really in the caribbean today you have a high number of murders gang violence is on the on the right we have a high number of wounded shootings kidnappings for randoms for ransom and you have a high number of multiple murders in countries like jamaica trina tobago belize and some of the other countries trafficking and drugs people on our topic today firearm and ammunition is a big concern for us in the region next slide please all right so that you and what you see uh world bank study 2007 found obviously i challenge that later on and others have challenged it that we in that study they found that the caribbean had the highest highest murder rate per capita of all the regions in the world at 30 murders or 100 000 people if this study actually found that trip that that countries in the region had a higher much higher murder uh people being killed by um because they were murdered as competitor countries with civil wars countries like civil wars had lower debt rate than us in the region here four of the countries in our studies study that i did four of the countries the top four countries with the highest murder rates when you look at them gang violence was the number one classification of those murders so we have a gang violence problem in the caribbean and when you look at those murders 80 to 86 percent curriculum is saying 80 to 86 percent of those murders are committed with the use of firearms as well as the and again if it's shooting it's committed using a firearm so firearm illegal firearms and sometimes illegal firearms as well is of serious concern to us in the region next slide next slide all right i think it's important to note that we in the caribbean i heard my two colleagues before uh uh speak in great detail about the provisions of sifta and the arms trade treaty and then all the other conventions which are the protocol to the convention on organized crime and the program of action on on illicit firearms and so on but i think it's important to note that while we are we are acutely affected by firearms we don't produce firearms only in the curriculum and commonwealth caribbean if you use the acs definition of the caribbean you you'd find that a number of those countries they produce firearms but none of the caricom oas and commonwealth countries commonwealth caribbean countries produce firearms i think it's important to know that once we are affected we don't produce firearms next like this right so how do we fiam's coming ah let's look at trina tobago they're coming through the legal ports and as well as the illegal ports i know it's interesting us speaking to the the the head of the coast guard um recently and he said they have observed that since around 2017 to 2018 that while there's this belief it's it's out there in the literature and most of the studies you see the drugs accompany the arms and the the firearms accompany the drugs and the firearms accompany the people they have found that from most of their interdiction operations that is not so and what we found is that most of the firearm discoveries are coming to our legal ports so in trinidad tobago we have two airports one airport in trinidad which is piaco and another airport in tobago which is the arabians network and and while we have a number of legal ports in trinidad the the ports where you have the container traffic it's just that port of spain and that point lisa's and in tobago while you don't have container container operations you have pleasure crafts and containers being shipped to tobago through this capro port so those are the illegal ports of concern and for us for us in trinidad and tobago just like our caribbean neighbors the issue i was mentioned by my two previous speakers the issue is one of border security for us and sometimes people wonder why you you speak about the the characteristics and the description of carbon countries we're small we're multiple island states we have all these challenges so it's extremely difficult they're for example a country like cinque san nivis about 58 000 people think of that country and the other thing is most of the our eastern caribbean countries they do not have militaries so think of the challenges of caribbean countries to secure their borders to secure the 12 mile that their 12 miles uh territorial sea and their 200 miles exclusive economic zone so think of what is happening in those countries take for example a country like bahamas multiple islands with a small population so the demands on those countries to secure their their their borders is amazing it's truly amazing next slide so just to give you a sense as to some of the the firearms that we the origins now remember a short while ago i mentioned that we don't produce firearms in china and tobago or anywhere in the caricom caribbean commonwealth caribbean or the os caribbean member states this is where most of the firearms that we we have have seized in this country come from and you can see clearly from the data the united states of america is the the major source of the firearms entering into the country and i also see quite a significant number of firms coming from one of all latin american are coming from one of all latin american neighbors which is brazil and italy australia and the theater european country provides the bulk is the source of the bulk of the firearms coming into our country next slide all right so how have we responded as a country to the issue of illicit trafficking in firearms now as a as a regional security leader within caricom you have a quiz i quiz i cabinet because we're small and we challenge and we're facing all these vulnerabilities particularly with respect to capacity constraints and finance it's important for us to come together as a region and where where our responses will be regional and those regional response will assist the weaker states in in the region so for the amstrad treaty which which the the caribbean had a particular interest in this country provided the lead negotiator on the arm street treaty which is ambassador eden charles he was the lead negotiator for curriculum and i'm happy to say that we got the inclusion of small arms and like weapons much of the children of other countries as well as article 5 and 6 all those controls that were mentioned earlier on by simonetta and pierre the issue of accountability are records points of contact in the country the important issue of of of of transit firearms coming to the country we fought for those those articles to be included in the treaty so we played a major role in the um straight treaty and we also provided the lead negotiator we're very active in the in the the program of action on on illicit firearms and as well as the protocol in fact the i'm happy to say that well as you all know i am a servant police officer and this special investigations unit is the the agency that is the point of contact for the un protocol on firearms and as i'm speaking about about about uh responses i know my two previous colleagues spoke a lot on on treaties um we spoke a lot about sifter uh chelante bagel is a party to sifter um all caribbean countries are parties um parties the sifter in fact um and as pera mentioned the only country that is not that has not ratified and i actually did some work while i was there uh working closely with lincoln allen when i was in washington department of public security working on those internal issues to bring jamaica in line i see you you're continuing in that thing so i am i i fully understand you know sheridan could you finish in in the next two minutes just so that alejandro will have time thank you sure next slide please alright so at the atmospheric level all caribbean countries have signed on to sifter trinity bagel uh even though we didn't sign on and 98 we we signed and we didn't sign in 97 when the convention came in the force we are particular sister we participated in the i was actually in in dps at the time when trent and tobago participated in the firearms marking project as well as those stockpile management and so on and a number of other caribbean countries actually involved in that um i must mention as well like you know that uh jamaica is the only caribbean country that has not ratified but it has signed on and i'm sure my colleagues are working previously to comply with those and ensure that those internal mechanisms are consistent with the with the um i think it's important to note that while we and it's something i did when i occupy that seat that pierre is holding out i i remember working closely with jamaica nudging jamaica nudging jamaica to to ratify and it's important to note we in the caribbean we small we challenge we fear to be a vulnerable only our two large north american partners have not ratified sifta i think it it must not go unnoticed that while we get all these pressures from from different quarters to sign that ratify these these treaties and to comply with all these obligations our two large north american partners still have not ratified sifter next slide please so at the regional level there's a new character there's a new architecture for security because the responsibility for crime and security it's important as i mentioned before for us to collaborate and and cooperate my good friend ivor griffith always speaks about the collaboration imperative and it's a i mean it's a no-brainer we're small we challenge uh we lack resources we have capacity comes constraints so countries like trinidad take the lead and we we have implemented things like the the radar system curriculum impacts is something that one of the previous leaders prime minister manning pumped a lot of funds and much to the criticisms of some of the people here but the intention was if we make the region safer our countries like us and other neighboring countries would benefit so we lead in many respects we leave in terms of funding we need in terms of providing venues because curriculum and boxes based here in china tobago we lead in terms of staffing we staff those agencies we also very active we we're the most active caribbean country in in sika in in and i'm sure in dps as well we hosted a lot of those those initiatives in in from the department of our public security remember we will turn the establishment of the inter-american observatory in the americas um sorry to cut you off but uh in order to leave enough time uh we only have another um 17 minutes left i wanna okay we should um now it was off in the next minute or two so so we have um we have the deck our declaration on fire you know we have a treaty among our caribbean countries at the declaration on on the past declaration at the national level we we have we've acquired long-range k-plus and stand patrol patrol vessels and not only petroleum waters we assess our aquarium countries we have electronic assets which assist not just this country all the way up the eastern curb and all the way up to up to saint lucia um a lot of the stuff that was mentioned before e-trace training 42 for police officers by una odc um atf we actually in in um actually linked to the atf database we have new legislation on bail and our members of the judiciary are taking new approaches stop the bail for persons with firearm charges we have a very robust community calm community engagement so we really appeal to people in many different forums if you see something say something on firearms recently or commissioner launch national operation task force and we actually gonna implement your airport and seek out which i'm sure most of you are aware that's the security corporation both at the airports and the support most of our our operations now are intelligence-led so we have a national um ssa to get out the other intelligence agency unit and we work closely with caricom the joint regional command center in the future center next slide please okay i think i think we have to um stop there sheridan because um i really want to give alejandro time and you've got excellent slides that people are going to be able to also see afterwards so let's now before we run out of time completely turn it over to alejandro and talk about the lawsuit thank you very much sheridan sorry dude uh thank you very much um i shared them thank you bruce and uh to them the aviation of justice section and for all my co-panelists i'll i'll beat up um build up on what sheridan was mentioning by by saying that it is clear that governments in the region and in the world are working hard very hard um international organizations are working very hard in trying to put a stop into the armed violence generation by the illicit trafficking of weapons into our countries what is um extremely important to highlight is that the majority of the countries that are affected by armed violence um as a consequence of the illicit trafficking of guns a good number of them military style weapons the assault rifles have a very strict legislation for bidding uh prohibiting the legal trade of weapons differently from what happens in some countries like the united states in mexico and i'll refer only to mexico and then i'll talk more about the lawsuit um in mexico we have only one office managed by our army the ministry of defense the secretary of national defense um administers this office where private citizens can apply for a permit and once they have the permit they can buy certain weapons it's important to share that these weapons are not the kind of weapons that are sold in the united states the caliber is very small we're not talking about uh the military-style rifle like a barrett caliber 50 that you could buy as a private citizen in the united states so what is that happens with mexico and the united states with such a broad border we have a constant traffic of illicit weapons from the united states into mexico what we arguing our lawsuit and then i'll give some details about the lawsuit is that mexico suffered of an armed violence situation this armed violence situation is generated by the number a very high number of weapons and military-style weapons in the order of half a million weapons trafficked from the united states every year this is a conservative estimate half a million weapons coming from the united states um these number of weapons have increased in being trafficked since 2004 the year were the assault weapon spans ban expire in the united states so there is a relation that we claim as victims the government of mexico is suing as a victim there is a relation between the increase on production and trade of weapons in the united states and homicides by firearm in mexico we're talking about tens of thousands of people that are killed and a lot more are that are hurt by firearms by firearms that shouldn't exist in mexico because in mexico we don't sell them and if we import legally weapons from the united states or other countries there's a very strict mechanism to assess the risk of uh the final use and final user of these weapons but the matter the fact is the reality is that there is a legal trade of weapons in the united states and through negligent and illicit actions of gun manufacturers and gun distributors these weapons are illicitly trafficked into mexico through um and trafficking a similar dimension um um straw purchasers and other actions that are are negligent why are they negligent you somebody would say like what is the fault of a legally established business into what happens in mexico well there's a matter of foreseeability sadly everybody knows what happens in mexico or we know somebody that knows what happens in mexico people don't want to travel to mexico because it's dangerous there's a department of state travel alerts because of violence in mexico by owners generated by these weapons that are trafficked the gun manufacturers and the gun distributors are unnoticed they know that these red flags they know about this situation they know that their weapons are used by criminals and criminal organizations in mexico to commit crimes and even though they know and they have known this for decades they do nothing to remediate this the government of mexico like a lot of uh governments and and i say again thank you to sheridan because he's playing a lot of what we do in the bi-national foreign and multilateral forum we're part of conventions we prosecute the criminals we put more forces and uh distract a lot of our resources and taxpayers money to protect our borders but still there's half a million weapons coming into uh mexico the reality is that in the situation between mexico and the united states both governments have worked together they work unilaterally the us is doing a lot more now to to stop the illegal export of legally bought firearms in the united states into mexico there's in the last year there have been several cases of trafficking among u.s states and then trying to bring them down into mexico the most of the most impact the most recent three million munitions were ceased in mexico and they were coming from mexico from the united states this is three million so even though as governments we work together and we prosecute the criminals these consumers in mexico that shouldn't exist nothing has been done to work with a missing link what is the missing link in this equation the corporations we are asking through this litigation the companies to be accountable to be diligent for them to be more careful in the way they conduct business this lawsuit is not against the second amendment is not against the u.s government it's not against um u.s citizens that buy guns this is a third law civil lawsuit that we filed in federal court in boston massachusetts and we claim that these negligent actions by the defendants that corporations were suing actively facilitate the illicit traffic of their weapons into mexico how do we know this through the traceability of the serial numbers of their weapons if the traceability information was public and anybody could see it we could see the river the iron river that flows from the united states into crime scenes in mexico i'm sure it happens also that river flows to other countries in the region um with the time that i have i just want to highlight that one um president in march of 2000 president bill clinton the white house then announced this very important and historical agreement with the smith and wesson this is 2010 sadly it's met and goes on didn't comply with it and smith and wesson agreed to have controls in place to help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and help law enforcement track down illegal gun traffickers 2010 there is information out there there's information in the public arena for the companies to know and be on notice that their products are being used to commit crimes i was uh listening to simonetta when we talk about the att and the risk assessment and exportations the companies that are selling to governments are very careful in how they sell and who do they sell to to governments but they should take the same care with their distributors with the distributor chain they know who are the bad apples and they do nothing to remedy this we're suing under the u.s legal system we're suing in english we're suing in a federal court in massachusetts with all the respect we have to the u.s sovereignty and the u.s as a country and as a system and we are um relying on the judicial system to claim a harm that we're suffering as victim a victim the government of mexico is suffering a direction in the right farms and that's why we're suing in u.s courts okay so um so that's the you've concluded your presentation alejandro huh yeah i saw us uh a chat here to finish 12 25 okay or 125. go ahead so we we have a few more minutes um for q a so firs