Giuseppe Arlacchi

Background

He was born in Gioia Tauro, Calabria (Italy).

Career

On September 1, 1997 he was appointed Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna and Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), with the rank of Under-Secretary-General. Currently, he is a full professor of sociology at the University of Sassari. In the early 1990s he was involved in the foundation of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA), a law-enforcement agency specially entrusted with fighting organized crime.

Later on he became president of IASOC (International Organization of studies on organized crime).

He has been associate professor of applied sociology at the University of Calabria and at the University of Florence. Moreover he was visiting professor at the Columbia University of New York, United States of America. Later on he got the full professor position at the University of University of Sassari, where he is currently professor of sociology at the political science faculty.

During this period, he was appointed vice-president of the Antimafia Commission, a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament for which he had already collaborated as consultant between 1984 and 1986. As soon as he was appointed director of UNDCP he started a worldwide campaign against drugs, the so-called "A Drug Free World".

The key point of such proposal was the elimination of all opium and cocaine plantations by end of 2008, by means of the development of alternative plantations.

Such a proposal had been proposed by Arlacchi immediately after his installation at the United Nations office and it had been unanimously approved by the general United Nations assembly in June 1998. Since that time, the production of narcotic sensibly decreased, in particular in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the new war conducted by United States against the Taliban regime has interrupted the program started by Arlacchi some year before.

After the beginning of the war, the production of opium restarted.

A review of the Arlacchi plan has been carried out in March 2009 by the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The document of this convention came into effect since 2003.

Achievements

• The most important result achieved by Arlacchi during his activity at the United Nations was the promotion of United Nations convention against all the forms of organized criminality, that has been held in Palermo in 2000.

Politics

The Political Declaration approved at the end of the review process acknowledged significant progresses and reconfirmed the whole strategy for another 10 years, until 2019.

Membership

Actually he represents the Italian Democratic Party and is a member of the Socialists and Democrats (South&Doctorate) parliamentary group from 2010. Between 1994-1996 he was a member of the lower chamber of the Italian parliament and, between 1996–1997, of the Senate. From 2009 he is a Member of the European Parliament for Southern Italy: initially with the Italy of Values (ALDE), then with the Democratic Party (South&Doctorate).

Connections

Friend:

Giovanni Falcone