The concept of conventional international security tended to focus on a State's sovereignty and territorial integrity from external military threats. However, the concept of security has evolved in this contemporary world as the threats emanating from non-state forces have considerably risen through the passage of time. The perpetrators are quick to adapt to the changes in technology, goods mobility, and globalization, thereby taking advantage of them. It is more difficult to address this concern because these actors do not execute their deeds solely in one area, nor does the impact occur in one jurisdiction. A significant characteristic of this kind of threat is that its effects transcend across geographical boundaries. This consequently follows that they cannot be solved by a single jurisdictional authority and thus would require international cooperation.
The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
In response to the global threat of transnational organized crime, the international community was led to the signing of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) in December 2000 in Palermo, Italy. The purpose of this Convention is to promote cooperation to prevent and combat transnational organized crime more effectively.[1] Subsequently, three protocols to this convention were created, namely: The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children; The Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air; and The Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components and Ammunition.[2] A huge part of the international community gave a commitment to combat transnational crimes, having 192 State parties of UNTOC as of October 20, 2023.[3] The convention and its protocols remain the primary global tools to prevent and address a broad range of criminal activities at the international level. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), established in 1997, serves as the guardian of the UNTOC and its three protocols.

Source: UNODC[4]
What is Transnational Organized Crime?
One of the rules on legality in criminal law is that it requires the criminal offense to be described in a precise manner and should not be vague. The 2000 UNTOC characterized an offense as transnational in nature if the following elements are present: (a) It is committed in more than one State; (b) It is committed in one State but a substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction or control takes place in another State; (c) It is committed in one State but involves an organized criminal group that engages in criminal activities in more than one State; or (d) It is committed in one State but has substantial effects in another State.”[5]
Activities that can be characterized as transnational organized crime include terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling of migrants, human trafficking, money laundering, trafficking in firearms, counterfeit goods, wildlife and cultural property, and even some aspects of cybercrime.[6] Emerging forms of transnational crimes also include environmental crimes such as illegal mining and ecocide
The Challenges in Addressing Transnational Crimes
In addition to their inherent nature of having cross-border stages of execution and effects, dealing with transnational crimes also becomes challenging due to different national orientations of laws and law enforcement in different jurisdictions. Every country has its own legal framework and law enforcement mechanisms for dealing with certain crimes.
To illustrate these challenges on legality aspects, let’s take a look at the infamous ILOVEYOU Virus. In 2000, a virus spread across the world that disrupted the operations of businesses and government agencies. Taking advantage of human curiosity and perhaps excitement in the name of love, an email with the subject line “ILOVEYOU" and the attachment "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs" was sent to different parts of the world, including the Pentagon and the British Parliament. Once opened, it would disseminate itself to every contact found in the user’s email address book and send copies of itself to them, causing it to spread rapidly. This had caused damages amounting to billions of dollars.
The investigations pointed to a young student from the Philippines named Onel De Guzman. The authorities were faced with technical conflicts in addressing the incident. First, no specific cybercrime legislation existed in the Philippines during that time. Hence, De Guzman cannot be tried and convicted for cybercrime offenses. Second, since there’s no specific offense, the suspect was prosecuted for malicious mischief and credit card fraud. The drawback here was that one of its elements was “intent” to damage, and de Guzman had claimed during custodial investigations that he might have unwittingly released the worm. Hence, the charges were dismissed.[7] Third, the search warrant was issued with enough delay to let the suspect delete important evidence. Lastly, there was no extradition due to the lack of the necessary double criminalization of the act in the two states involved in the deportation procedure.

Source: CNN[8]
It’s been more than two decades since the “ILOVEYOU” virus incident, yet the cyberspace vulnerabilities it exposed still exist today. Although efforts have been made to establish international and domestic legal frameworks to prevent the same thing from happening again, we must recognize that international cooperation methods still need to be enhanced.
Transnational Cooperation
Forms of transnational cooperation include joint investigative teams, transfer of sentenced persons, transfer of criminal proceedings, and law enforcement or police coordination – an example is the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), an intergovernmental organization facilitating international police which has 196 member countries who work together to share data related to police investigations.[9] Another form of transnational cooperation is judicial coordination and assistance; in particular, it refers to “extradition” and “mutual legal assistance”.
Extradition, in international law, is the process by which one state, upon the request of another, affects a person's return for trial for a crime punishable by the laws of the requesting state and committed outside the state of refuge (Britannica). Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) in criminal matters is a process by which States seek and provide assistance to other States in servicing judicial documents and gathering evidence for use in criminal cases.[10] However, these forms of cooperation can be limited by grounds of refusal provided for by the basis of cooperation and the national law of the requested State, such as the concept of double criminality, citizenship, age, gravity of the crime, and serious breaches of human rights.
There is no universally applicable treaty regulating interstate cooperation or establishing a duty to cooperate. In a narrower scope, international agreements serve as the basis for interstate cooperation. On the other hand, parties that are unable to extradite without a treaty are encouraged to use UNTOC as the legal basis for extradition. UNODC has prepared a Model Treaty on Extradition and a Model Law on Extradition (2004). These technical assistance tools are intended to be used by States in the negotiation of bilateral and regional agreements to promote more effective cooperation in criminal cases with transnational implications and in enactment of relevant national laws.[11]

Conclusion
The current mechanisms play a great role and appear to be working to some extent in preventing and combating transnational organized crimes. Nonetheless, it is still imperative to continuously evaluate policies and improve implementation tools both at the national and international levels to adapt to the fast-emerging forms of transnational organized crimes. May this International Day for the Prevention of and Fight against All Forms of Transnational Organized Crime serve as a call to the international community to raise awareness and build stronger cooperation.
[1] Article 1, United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime [“UNTOC”].
[2] United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, accessed October 24, 2024, https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/organized-crime/intro/UNTOC.html.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.” United Nations : Office on Drugs and Crime. Accessed October 29, 2024. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/organized-crime/intro/UNTOC.html.
[5] Article 3, UNTOC.
[6] Kevin.town, “Transnational Organized Crime: Let’s Put Them out of Business,” Transnational organized crime: the globalized illegal economy, accessed October 24, 2024, https://www.unodc.org/toc/en/crimes/organized-crime.html.
[7] Landler, Mark (21 October 2000). "A Filipino Linked to 'Love Bug' Talks About His License to Hack". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 May 2010.
[8] Griffiths, James. “How a Badly-Coded Computer Virus Caused Billions in Damage | CNN Business.” CNN, May 3, 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/01/tech/iloveyou-virus-computer-security-intl-hnk/index.html.
[9] INTERPOL, accessed October 24, 2024, https://www.interpol.int/en.
[10] Fromiti. “Organized Crime Module 11 Key Issues: Mutual Legal Assistance.” Organized Crime Module 11 Key Issues: Mutual Legal Assistance. Accessed October 24, 2024. https://www.unodc.org/e4j/ru/organized-crime/module-11/key-issues/mutual-legal-assistance.html#/:~:text=Mutual%20legal%20assistance%20(MLA)%20in,for%20use%20in%20criminal%20cases.
[11] Ibid.