Sochi Conference Report

Combatting Terrorism and Violent Extremism – the 7^th Regional Conference for Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Sochi, 2015

Set in Sochi, on the flatlands leading to the Caucasus mountains and overlooking the Black Sea, the Russian hosts welcomed more than 150 registered delegates from 34 countries and 8 international organisations to the 7^th Eastern European and Central Asian IAP conference. The topic was ‘Combatting Terrorism and Violent Extremism’. Our host, Yury Chayka, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, noted in his welcome speech that the current threat posed by terrorism and terrorism organisations have few parallels in modern times. Current threats have global reach and represent a constantly increasing creativity and fluidity in the funding, the organisation, the planning and the execution of terrorist activities. We are, quite simply, forced to become more effective in how we respond to these threats and how we deal with terrorist activities and the violent extremism that underpin it – both within jurisdictions and across borders. Nobody could have imagined how these words would take on an immediate urgency only few days later, when several terrorist attacks took place in Paris, France.

In September this year, at the IAP Annual Conference, the IAP launched the newly developed cyber-platform for a prosecutors’ network in counter-terrorism, developed together with UN CTED and ISS, and presented the board that will be governing it. This conference was a great opportunity to get so many delegates together to continue our global efforts to strengthen prosecutors’ network and collaboration in countering terrorism across all boarders.

On the professional programme was five major plenary sessions over a two days’ programme. Following the opening session, in which the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and the IAP President together sat the agenda, the first session’s speakers presented the delegates to the new challenges for prosecutors in combating terrorism and violent extremism. This was followed by three sessions of national experiences from the region and beyond. And finally, what turned out to be a great way to wrap up the programme and connect all the sessions of the conference, the last plenary session introduced, discussed, and put forward ways of international collaboration among prosecutors – both responding to returning themes from the national experiences and pointing forward to future practical solutions. There was a clear message that we by now have the necessary legal platforms to combat terrorism, but that we continue to trail behind in the willingness, the creativity and the efficiency of our approaches. And so, there was a strong message that we need to get more creative in what direct or indirect activities we target, in how we investigate and prosecute and most importantly how we collaborate practically across boarders. More about the latter below.

The authority of the speakers was impressive. With Jean-Paul Laborde, the executive director of the Counter Terrorism Directorate of the UN Security Council, setting the tone in the first session, and with Phillipe Biollat, Director General of the Directorate of Human Rights and Rule of Law, Council of Europe and Albina Yakkubova from the OSCE presenting practical ways forward for international collaboration, the conference opened and closed on target and responding to actual challenges right now. This is a virtue, when considering how easily the chosen topic could have discussions turn political and hostile. And in between these sessions, our Russian hosts had succeeded in getting together three panels of authoritative presentations of national experiences in the region. Among the many enlightening presentations, Indira Dzholdubaeva, Prosecutor General of the Kyrgyz Republic gave a great overview of current and planned prosecutorial activities, as did Zagorka Dolovac, Prosecutor General of the republic of Serbia and Yury Khokhlov, Head of the Department for Supervision over the Execution of Legislation on Federal Security, Interethnic Relations and Combating Extremism and Terrorism in Russia. As is a good tradition in the IAP, speakers also represented jurisdictions outside the region – including Rodrigo Janot Moneiro de Barros, Prosecutor General of Brazil, Dawood Adam, Special Advisor to the NDPP of South Africa, Sheikh Mohammed Al Abdullah, President of the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution of Saudi Arabia, and Cao Jianming, Prosecutor General of the People’s Republic of China.

Yury Chayka declared from last evening’s stage: “the plan has been achieved” and so it is not difficult to see the many immediate outcomes of the conference. Getting prosecutors together from all regional countries, all working on countering terrorism in and of itself is an important outcome to ensure a greater willingness to collaborate across borders. Also, a number of bilateral and multilateral MoUs were signed. Furthermore, though it has not been the usual aim of regional conferences to have particular operational outcomes, this conference actually did. Responding to the need for urgent, practical and efficient methods of collaboration, the IAP, supported by the UN CTED, the hosts and the conference delegates, decided on the following:

• The IAP will, together with relevant UN agencies, work to extend the current IAP cyber-platform for prosecutors counter-terrorism network (CTPN) to also facilitate a method of 24-7 contact points in all member countries, so to facilitate a direct, fast, and reliable way of getting in contact with the right authority immediately in counter-terrorism cases.

As any IAP visitor to Russia is well aware, guests are honoured with social programmes of impressive nature that provides a great atmosphere for getting to know new colleagues and share memories for the future. Already the welcome in Moscow, the transportation to and welcome reception in Sochi at the conference venue, was more than could possibly be expected. Each evening brought one show more impressive and entertaining than the other. The delegates also were treated to visits to the Olympic Village and its many spectacular sights. Some more special events also took place during the conference. On the second day, the delegates all took part in the planting of trees in an alley in Sochi in the name of IAP – the “Alley of the International Association of Prosecutors” – as the plate describes. Also, on the last day, by initiative of the Russian hosts, the President of the IAP presented a statement on the 70^th anniversary of the Nuremberg tribunals, which the IAP issued on November 20^th, the day when the tribunals began 70 years ago.

I am sure that I talk for everyone when I sincerely thank the Russian hosts for a remarkable conference and for making such a strong contribution to the professional collaboration of prosecutors in the region and beyond.