Global crimes threaten Pacific

More formal co-operation in law and justice is needed throughout the Pacific Islands, says Greg Urwin, head of the Pacific Forum Secretariat.

Transnational crime poses severe challenges for law enforcement agencies in the South Pacific, says the head of the 16-nation Pacific Forum Secretariat, Greg Urwin.

Speaking at a Pacific attorneys-general conference in Fiji yesterday, he said the process of globalisation was raising questions for the world's most vulnerable states, including those in the South Pacific.

"Specifically, the general processes of globalisation have, unquestionably, made easier the depredations of transnational crime.

"This is posing very severe challenges for local law enforcement agencies of varying capacities and is changing the nature of what one might have thought of as more local forms of crime," said Mr Urwin, an Australian diplomat.

At the same time, colonial-era institutions, methods and processes "are no longer coping as well as they once might have".

"These sorts of developments are going to require considerable adjustment in the region over, it seems to me, a substantial and in some cases fairly messy period of time."

Mr Urwin said it was not simply a case of governance and law and justice, but also health, education, food, security and the environment, which meant talking with people about what their fundamental priorities should be.

"That this will be a complex and attenuated process, marked by as many defeats as victories, should surprise no one," he said.

Mr Urwin noted previous regional security problems, including civil war in Papua New Guinea's Bougainville and coups in Fiji.

He also listed "the freelancers; the unbroken line of variably plausible seekers of fortune".

These included far-right Americans who tried to set up government-free havens on Vanuatu's Santo Island and conmen who "denuded an early Tuvalu Treasury with investments in Texas real estate".

He also noted the case of Tonga's royal-appointed court jester, Jessie Bogdonoff, who was given control of the kingdom's US trust funds by King Taufaahau Tupou IV.

Last year, Tonga's Government said Bogdonoff had lost all the trust funds, worth US$26.5 million ($37.2 million), in re-insurance investments.

Mr Urwin also highlighted the strange case of the world's largest ruby in Vanuatu - which proved not to exist at all - "and all of those who, over the years, have assisted Nauru in squandering its birthright".

He pointed to the newly formed Pacific Transnational Crime Co-ordination Centre, an initiative of the Australian Federal Police, which was designed to co-ordinate operations and provide intelligence services to regional law enforcement agencies.

A proposed Pacific Regional Identity Protection Project would develop a common approach to combating identity fraud.

Mr Urwin said there should be a more formal process for regional law and justice co-operation.

He called for the establishment of a panel of judges, a common list of Pacific prosecutors, and a regional financial intelligence unit.

"And to fly a kite for a moment, maybe we should think about a regional 'Privy Council' or the formation of specialist regional courts to deal with constitutional or land issues," he said.

On the Solomon Islands, where Australia last year led a regional intervention to end four years of ethnic unrest, Mr Urwin said law and order had been restored and the economy was being strengthened.

"Overall, we are going quite well with this but on my estimation, a regional commitment of perhaps 10 years will be required if Solomon Islands is to be restored."

Mr Urwin, a veteran diplomat in the Pacific, took over the forum last year.

- AAP