Criminal justice responses to terrorism in focus at OSCE seminar in Sofia

Effective criminal justice responses to terrorism, based on the rule of law, were the focus of a two-day seminar organized by the OSCE in co-operation with the Bulgarian National Institute of Justice on 6-7 October 2015 in Sofia.

The seminar gathered about 30 representatives of national agencies involved in counter-terrorism and focused on the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s (GCTF) Rabat Memorandum on Good Practices for Effective Counterterrorism Practice in the Criminal Justice Sector.  Experts in the field of criminal justice presented good counter-terrorism practices developed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“Today’s event aims at promoting internationally recognized best practices that show how to balance rule of law concerns with effectively preventing and combating terrorism,” said Bulgaria’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Ambassador Svetoslav Spassov in his opening remarks. “Thanks to its multi-dimensional and co-operative approach to security, the OSCE is particularly well-equipped to support international efforts in tackling global threats such as terrorism.”

Discussions at the seminar concentrated on areas such as the effective co-ordination among domestic government agencies and the importance of international co-operation, particularly when being confronted with terrorism. The seminar also highlighted the need for the development of programmes for the protection of witnesses, victims and other parties involved in terrorism cases, as well as for adopting incentives for terrorist suspects to co-operate with state authorities in the investigation and prosecution of terrorism offenses.

All OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-operation have committed to furthering international co-operative efforts in promoting effective and rule of law-based responses of their national criminal justice systems as part of a global strategy to counter terrorism.