G7 Venice, agreement on global justice challenges

10/05/2024

The commitment to Ukraine, the creation of the Venice Justice Group to address global justice challenges, the fight against organized crime, from drug trafficking to human trafficking: these were the main topics discussed during the two-day meeting held at the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista on 9 and 10 May, chaired by Minister Carlo Nordio.

Participants included the following ministers: France, Eric Dupond-Moretti; Germany, Marco Buschmann; the United Kingdom, Alex Chalk; Canada, Arif Virani; Japan, Hiroaki Kadoyama; and the United States, Merrick Garland. Unodc Director Ghada Waly and European Commission Vice-President Vera Jurova also took part. The first session devoted to Ukraine was attended by Minister of Justice, Denis Maliuska and Prosecutor Andriy Kostin.

“We confirm our commitment to support prosecutions to ensure accountability for international crimes committed in Ukraine,” reads the G7 final declaration in the chapter dedicated to Ukraine. The G7 welcomed Ukraine’s important progress in its reform efforts, in the rule of law and in the anti-corruption fight, implemented through the establishment of the Ukraine Anti-Corruption Task Force (Tokyo 2023).

The main outcome of the Venice meeting, the third after Berlin and Tokyo, was the creation of the Venice Justice Group, a body that will strengthen and coordinate the initiatives of the G7 countries.  Thanks to it, the various ministries will discuss global challenges, starting with Artificial Intelligence, to help defend democratic systems against disinformation on the web and protect electoral processes. To this end, Italy has undertaken to organize the first technical meeting in November.

The second day was devoted to the fight against organized crime, starting with drug trafficking and the ‘dramatic’ emergency, as Minister Carlo Nordio put it, linked to fentanyl: ‘The US has had more deaths due to fentanyl than during the Vietnam war, in Canada there is the same problem, and unfortunately, as expected, the drug is also spreading in Europe. In Italy we had the first example of an investigation and everything suggests that we will have more’.

Another focus was on human trafficking and irregular migration, with a view to implementing the Palermo Convention, the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC), and supporting the work of the UNODC.

‘We had two days of intense, extremely fruitful work that ended with a full shared vision on a number of essential issues,’ commented Minister Nordio at the end of the two-day G7 meeting.