Media Center

New York / Information Office / June 19

The State of Qatar has reiterated the importance of promoting peaceful societies to achieve sustainable development goals and pursuing an approach that will provide universal access to justice and establish effective and comprehensive accountability institutions.

This came in a high-level debate session moderated by HE Qatar's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani. Held today in New York, the session discussed "Transnational Organized Crime" on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Judge Giovanni Falcone.

In her opening remarks, Sheikha Alya said despite the passage of 15 years since the implementation of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, there are still challenges facing the international community, stressing the importance of the fundamental link between sustainable development and effective and available criminal justice systems and institutions.

Her Excellency noted that the State of Qatar had implemented the Convention and used it as a mechanism for international cooperation, including sharing of good experiences and highlighting the relevance of the Convention to counter-terrorism measures, referring to Doha's hosting of the UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in April 2015.

She also praised the historic Doha Declaration which integrated crime prevention and criminal justice into broader United Nations programs to address social and economic challenges and to strengthen the rule of law at the national and international levels.

Concluding her speech, HE Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani stressed the importance of promoting peaceful, corruption-free and inclusive societies to achieve sustainable development goals, stressing the need for an approach that would provide everyone with access to justice and establish effective, special and comprehensive accountability institutions at all levels.