Under the overall guidance of the OCB/CSS Chief, and the direct supervision of Mr Dmitry Orlov, the Individual Contractor will perform the following specific tasks:
• With a focus on Arabic language, support legal research and upload onto SHERLOC a minimum of 120 legislative provisions or strategies and a minimum of 12 cases onto SHERLOC;
• With a focus on Arabic language, support the organization of the bilateral consultations during the working groups on firearms and technical assistance and compile statistics and reports upon their finalization.
Home-based
March - August 2023
Further to relevant mandates from the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (COP), UNODC started, in 2010, the development of the knowledge management portal known as SHERLOC (Sharing Electronic Resources and Laws On Crime). It is a UNODC on-going initiative aimed at facilitating the dissemination of information regarding the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and the Protocols thereto. Ever since, SHERLOC has become a practitioner’s tool for police investigators, prosecutors and judges; a monitoring tool for government policy-makers; an awareness-raising tool for the public and media; as well as an information tool for researchers, legal drafters and all those responding to transnational organized crime.
It currently hosts six databases: (1) the Case Law Database, (2) the Database of Legislation (3) the Bibliographic Database, (4) the Directory of Competent National Authorities, (5) the Database of Strategies and (6) the Database on Treaties. Additionally, it hosts the electronic version of the Legislative Guide whose purpose is to assist States seeking to ratify or implement the Organized Crime Convention.
The Case Law Database is a comprehensive database allowing users to see how Member States are tackling organized crime cases both operationally and in their courts. It contains jurisprudence, as well as records of successful law enforcement operations with regard to counterfeiting, cybercrime, drug offences, money laundering, obstruction of justice, participation in an organized criminal group, piracy and maritime crimes, smuggling of migrants, trafficking in firearms, trafficking in cultural property, crimes affecting the environment, trafficking in persons, falsified medical products, corruption and terrorism.
The Database of Legislation is an electronic repository of laws relevant to the provisions of UNTOC and the Protocols thereto. It is searchable by: (1) country, (2) UNTOC article, (3) crime type, and (4) cross-cutting issue. While also enabling access to full legislation documents, the Database of Legislation provides extracts of laws relevant to specific UNTOC articles and crime types, allowing the users to quickly find provisions relating to their search query.
The above-mentioned databases include summaries and, when available, full court decisions of more than 3,000 cases on transnational organized crime and counter-terrorism, as well as more than 11,000 relevant legal provisions, from more than 190 countries and more than 1300 bibliographic abstracts. These can be accessed through: sherloc.unodc.org.
The Bibliographic Database is an annotated bibliography providing a synopsis of key articles that are searchable by: (1) country, (2) crime type, and (3) cross cutting issue.
The Directory of Competent National Authorities contains the authorities designated to receive, respond and process requests pertaining to mutual legal assistance, extradition and transfer of sentenced prisoners, smuggling of migrants, trafficking in firearms, trafficking in cultural property and terrorist cases.
The Database on Strategies, which is the most recent, provides access to strategies and plans of actions adopted at national level pertaining to the fifteen different crime types, while a dedicated Database on Treaties provides the ratification status of the UNTOC and the Protocols thereto, as well as of other relevant international instruments.
By creating these databases, SHERLOC aims at developing internationally agreed upon legal mechanisms against transnational organized crime, while improving the visibility of successful prosecutions and promoting awareness about the devastating realities of organized crime and terrorism.
A High School diploma is required.
- A minimum of 2 years of progressively responsible experience in analysis of legislation/ legal research is required
- Experience in analysis of legislation/legal research in the area of crime prevention and criminal justice and/or organized crime or closely related issues is desirable
- Previous experience working with knowledge management portals such as legal databases is desirable
- Previous work experience in international organizations is desirable
- Previous experience with website content management systems is desirable
English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this position, fluency in Arabic and English (both oral and written) is required. Working knowledge of another official language of the UN is an advantage.
THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.