Transnational Organized Crime in North America
Co-sponsored by the department of Social Science, Criminology program and the Nathanson Centre.
Seminar Topic: On December 15, 2021, US President Joseph R. Biden signed Executive Order 14060 Establishing the United States Council on Transnational Organized Crime (TOC). The directive says, in part, that addressing TOC requires ‘a cohesive whole-of-government effort executed in collaboration with State, local Tribal, territorial and civil society partners in the United States in close coordination with foreign partners, international and regional organizations, and international and local civil society groups abroad’. This Executive Order establishes the basis for enhanced transnational policing operations to ‘employ authorized intelligence and operational capabilities in an integrated manner to target, disrupt, and degrade transnational criminal organizations that pose a threat to national security’. Executive Order 14060 has serious implications for the United States’ continental neighbours Mexico and Canada. This seminar aims to explore what is known and understood about the phenomena of TOC, the institutional responses to it, and wider societal ramifications of this interaction for people living in North America.
Speaker: Mónica Serrano is Research-Professor of International Relations at El Colegio de México, Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute, and Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies, Oxford University. She has been co-ordinator of the North American Studies Programme at El Colegio de México; Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect; and co-editor of Global Governance. Her recent publications include: “US-Mexican Relations: From NAFTA to Donald Trump” (2017); and El debate de la Asamblea General de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas sobre el problema mundial de las drogas de 2016 (in press, Mexico’s Senate 2018), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on international institutions, human rights and drug policy. Her current research focuses on drug policy and the last generation of human rights violations in Mexico and Latin America.
Respondent: Matthew Light is Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Toronto. He is a subject expert on migration control, policing and criminal justice, and public and citizen security in the post-Soviet region. His book Fragile Migration Rights: Freedom of Movement in Post-Soviet Russia and several published articles on Russian federal and regional migration policies in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR analyze the forms of freedom of movement that emerged in the post-Soviet Russian state and the wider region. His work considers migration management in comparative international perspective. Light’s recent work concerns policing and other aspects of public and citizen security in several post-Soviet countries, including Russia, Georgia, and Armenia, and examines the evolution of both public policing institutions and private provision of security in the region.
Chair: James Sheptycki is a Professor of Criminology at York University. His expertise concerns transnational and comparative criminology, and the politics of policing in a global perspective. He has published widely on these topics.
All sessions will be open to faculty & students.
All are welcome and encouraged to attend.
For details and information, please contact jshep@yorku.ca
Light refreshments will be provided.
