Hello delegates!

In a short amount of time I will finally be meeting you all! This is so exciting for me, as your director. This process, for me, began just about a year ago when I started to develop the agenda items for this committee. Look at us now! Our topics are published, the background guides are written, and I am just about to meet you! Pardon my excitement...

Anyway, in this past week, I have received some great emails with questions about the committee and agenda items. I am so glad to hear you all are excited and eager to learn. I have seen a couple emails with regards to understanding exactly where the CCPCJ is in relation to the larger structure of the United Nations. I wanted to take the time post a blog entry with my response(s), so everyone could have a glance at it!

What is the scope and function of the CCPCJ and how is it different from the UNODC?
I would first direct your attention to the beginning sections of the Background Guide in relation to scope. There, I have written a general view of the scope of our committee. For further clarification, I would look at the CCPCJ website: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/commissions/CCPCJ/index.html. I would invite you to look at the general summation of the committee's mandate or mission; essentially, the CCPCJ embraces all issues related to notions of international justice and crime prevention. More so, it is about achieving justice through means of deterring crime (Crime Prevention) and bringing to light issues and giving them resolutions (Criminal Justice). Human trafficking, foreign prisoners, preserving cultural artifacts, organized crime, transnational maritime piracy, money laundering-- there is a vast array of topics that fall under the CCPCJ's jurisdiction or purview (meaning that the CCPCJ has the power, or the mandate to address these issue and formulate resolutions on such matters).

The CCPCJ is a subsidiary commission under the UNODC. So, think of the UNODC as the umbrella organization that beneath it, possess sub commissions and committees that address more specific issues in relation to Drugs and Crime. These committees and commissions then report back to the UNODC in their general body conferences and summits; they report on their progress through their sessions, and work in concert, or with, the UNODC to achieve goals under its general mandate. The general website for the UNODC is: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html. I recommend looking at the "about" section to get a feel for the general mandate of the UNODC. It is relatively similar to the CCPCJ, but the difference is the CCPCJ is very specific to crime prevention and criminal justice (aka the topics that I mentioned above). The UNODC has the ability to oversee and address way more issues that the CCPCJ. If it helps, read both "about" sections of the UNODC and the CCPCJ and make lists of differences between the two. You'll find that the issues overlap in some sense, but the CCPCJ issues are MUCH more specific than the UNDOC.

The UN is extremely complex in its organization. There are committees, ad hoc commissions, standing commissions, panels, conferences, summits-- you name it! I can understand how extremely confusing and frustrating this can be. I have been at Model UN for eight years now and I still have problems sometimes keeping it all straight. Essentially, the CCPCJ is a standing, or permanent commission, chartered or created under the authority of the UNODC. The UNODC is a subsidiary committee to of one of the main organs of the UN, ECOSOC: Economic and Social Council. To see UNODC under ECOSOC, check out this link: http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/about/subsidiary.shtml.

I hope this helps!

AP Lohman