With the start of the new year, I have joined the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime Expert Network.

The Global Intiative provides a platform for greater debate and to identify innovative approaches that could form the building blocks of an inclusive global strategy against organized crime. It was born from a series of high-level, off the record discussions between law enforcement officials from both developed and developing countries in 2011-12. At these meetings, the founders of the Global Initiative, many of whom stand at the front line of the fight against organized crime, illicit trafficking and trade, concluded that the problem and its impacts are not well analyzed; they are not systematically integrated into national plans or strategies; existing multilateral tools are not structured to facilitate a response; and existing forms of cooperation tend to be bilateral, slow and restricted to a limited number of like-minded states.