INTERPOL - World Model United Nations

INTERPOL 

World Model UN 2012 

Background Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Letter from the Secretary General..............................................................1 

Letter from the Under-Secretary General.....................................................2 

Letter from the Chair...................................................................................3 

History of the Committee.........................................................................4 

Topic A: Wildlife Crime...............................................................................7 

Current Situation........................................................................................7 

Proposed Solutions....................................................................................10 

Bloc Positions............................................................................................15 

Suggestions for Further Research...............................................................16 

Topic B: Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals..................................................16 

Current Situation.......................................................................................19 

Proposed Solutions....................................................................................22 

Potential Voting Blocs...............................................................................26 

Suggestions for Further Research...............................................................26 

Position Papers...........................................................................................27 

Closing Remarks.......................................................................................27 

B i b l i o g r a p hy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 7 

Endnotes......................................................................................30 

Cover image courtesy of Vancouver Tourism Board.

KATHLEEN TANG 

Secretary-General 

SAMIR PATEL 

Director-General 

KEVIN LIU HUANG 

Under-Secretary-General for 

General Assemblies 

ANNA TROWBRIDGE 

Under-Secretary-General 

for Economic and Social 

Councils and Regional 

Bodies 

APARAJITA TRIPATHI 


Specialized Agencies 

RICHARD EBRIGHT 


Operations 

SAMUEL LEITER 


Administration 

SCOTT YU 


Business 

Letter from the Secretary-General 

Dear Delegates 

My name is Kathleen Tang and I am serving as the Secretary- 

General of the WorldMUN 2012 conference. After being a part 

of WorldMUN for the past few years it is a bittersweet experience 

to be running my last WorldMUN ever, but I could not be more 

excited to share this experience with all of you! 

Within the pages of this guide you will find the topics that the 

WorldMUN staff has been hard at work on over the past few 

months. Each chair worked hard to find a topic that they are truly 

passionate about and provide the best guides possible through 

extensive research. However, the background guide should 

only be the first step in your substantive learning process. Read 

through the guide thoroughly and note what areas of debate are 

particularly interesting for your chair and use this as a starting 

point for your own research on the topic. Remember that you 

will be representing a country, a people, and a culture outside of 

your own during your week of debate. What viewpoints does your 

country have on this topic? What would they say to the issues the 

chair brings up in the guide? In what ways would your country 

most like to see these issues ‘resolved’? There are always more 

sources to look at and more news to be up to date with so the 

learning never stops! 

Of course, if you ever need help along the way there are many 

resources up online for you - WorldMUN 101 and the Rules of 

Procedure are both up on our website (www.worldmun.org) and 

will help you better understand how to write a study guide and 

how debate will run March 11-15th, 2012. Feel free to also reach 

out to your chair or USG via email. They are here to help you feel 

comfortable and prepared for the conference. 

I hope you enjoy the research presented here and also the learning 

process that comes with doing your own research on the topic. 

I look forward to meeting you in March! 

Sincerely, 

Kathleen Tang 


World Model United Nations 2012 

secretarygeneral@worldmun.org

KATHLEEN TANG 


SAMIR PATEL 









Bodies 






Operations 

SAMUEL LEITER 



SCOTT YU 


Business 

Letter from the Under-Secretary-General 

Dear Delegates 

It is with tremendous excitement that I welcome you to the Specialized 

Agencies of WorldMUN Vancouver! My name is Aparajita Tripathi, 

and I am honoured to be serving as your Under-Secretary-General 

for the 21st session of World Model United Nations. I am a junior 

at Harvard, pursuing interdisciplinary coursework in philosophy, 

government, history, economics, and anthropology. This is my 

second time serving as a member of the Secretariat, having been 

the USG of Business last year in Singapore. I cannot wait to begin 

yet another memorable round of the unforgettable WorldMUN 

experience with you all! 

I also had the privilege of chairing a WorldMUN SA committee 

in 2011 (the Indian Cabinet), so the Specialized Agencies are 

especially dear to me. As our name reveals, we are a truly special 

community of people who are incredibly dedicated to the cause of 

fruitful deliberation and diplomacy—from the fantastic chairs you 

will soon meet, to the diligent Assistant Chairs on the host team, 

and to you, the delegates. We may have the smallest committees 

at WorldMUN, but the level and intensity of debate in the SA can 

easily rival that of any General Assembly session. Moreover, I hope 

that you will take advantage of the SA’s small size to engage with 

each of your fellow delegates, both inside and outside of committee. 

These comprehensive study guides are the products of months 

of research and careful writing on the part of your chairs. Read 

them thoroughly with the knowledge that they are only a starting 

point meant to expose you to a particular debate. Where you 

situate yourself within that debate and the direction in which you 

take it will depend largely on your own research – be sure to do 

your homework prior to arriving in Vancouver! If you have any 

questions whatsoever about the guides, rules of procedure, or the 

conference in general, please do no hesitate to reach out to either 

me or your chairs. We would be more than happy to hear from you 

even before the conference starts. 

Looking forward to meeting you all in March! 

Warmest regards, 

Aparajita Tripathi 

Under-Secretary-General of the 


atripathi@college.harvard.edu

KATHLEEN TANG 


SAMIR PATEL 









Bodies 






Operations 

SAMUEL LEITER 



SCOTT YU 


Business 

Letter from the Chair 

Dear Delegates, 

Welcome to the 21st Session of WorldMUN at Vancouver, Canada! I 

hope you are as excited as I am to begin our debate in the Specialized 

Agencies’ INTERPOL, a dynamic new committee that promises to be 

filled with stimulating crisis and engaging debate. 

Before I introduce the topics we’ll be discussing over the week, let 

me tell you a bit about myself. My name is Lisa Wang, and I will be 

your chair for INTERPOL. I’m a sophomore at Harvard College, 

originally from central New Jersey, concentrating in Government with 

a secondary in Ethnic Studies. Outside Model UN, I also participate 

in Model Congress and tutor Boston residents for the U.S. Citizenship 

Exam. This year, I will be chairing the Human Rights Council at our 

high school conference, Harvard Model UN. I will also be directing 

the Security Council at our freshman conference, Model Security 

Council, in the beginning of the year. WorldMUN XXI will be my first 

WorldMUN conference, so I’m probably just as excited as you if not 

more! 

Without further ado, the topics we will be debating this year are 

Wildlife Crime and Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals. Both are relatively 

under-discussed issues, but they are on the rise in recent years and 

will have plenty of intricacy for you to debate. The direction of the 

committee will ultimately be up to you! 

Before conference, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the 

policies of your country both on these topics and your relationship 

to INTERPOL. The study guide that will be released in the upcoming 

weeks will be useful, but extra research will definitely facilitate debate 

over the course of a week. More importantly, however, be prepared 

to meet people from around the world and immerse yourself in 

the various cultures you will encounter. You will be sure to make 

friendships that will last you a lifetime! 

Best of luck during the research process! In the meantime, please 

feel free to contact me at any time before the conference if you 

have questions about the committee or conference, or simply just 

to introduce yourselves. Looking forward to meeting you all in 

Vancouver! 

Sincerely, 

Lisa Wang 

Chair, INTERPOL 

WorldMUN 2012

I N T R O D U C T I ON AND HI S T O R Y OF T H E 

C OMMI T T E E 

The International Criminal Police Organization (IN- 

TERPOL) is an organization responsible for facilitating 

international police cooperation. Established in 1923 as 

the International Criminal Police Commission, it adopted 

INTERPOL as its ocial name in 1956. As early as 1914, 

police ocers, lawyers, and judges from 14 countries 

discussed creating an international police organization in 

Monaco, but the formation was delayed due to World War 

I and postponed to the Second International Police Congress 

in Vienna, Austria. e movement stemmed from an 

emerging agreement that arrest procedures, identication 

techniques, criminal records, and extradition proceedings 

increasingly require an international consensus and integration 

in a globalizing world. During World War II, IN- 

TERPOL fell under Nazi control but was revived under the 

Allies in 1945. Currently consisting of 188 member nations, 

it is the second largest intergovernmental organization aer 

the United Nations. Former US Under Secretary of the 

Treasury for Enforcement, Ronald Noble, is the Secretary 

General of INTERPOL and presides over the General Secretariat 

of 84 member nations at the INTERPOL headquarters 

in Lyon, France. 

Under its constitution, INTERPOL is banned from dealing 

with political, military, religious, or racial crimes in order 

to preserve its neutrality. us, INTERPOL focuses primarily 

on broad-ranging issues with international impact, such 

as public safety, terrorism, organized crime, crimes against 

humanity, environmental crime, genocide, war crimes, 

piracy, illicit drug production, drug tracking, weapons 

smuggling, human tracking, money laundering, child 

pornography, white collar crime, computer crime, intellectual 

property crime, and corruption. While discussing and 

issuing policy directives for these issues, INTERPOL works 

closely with regional and national police organizations, the 

UN Oce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Intellectual 

Property Organization (WIPO), the World Trade 

Organization (WTO), the UN Educational, Scientic, and 

Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the World Customs 

Organization (WCO). 

e founding members (Austria, Belgium, China, Egypt, 

France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, 

Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia) established 

the ICPO-INTERPOL Constitution and General Regulations, 

which charges the organization with the duty to 

assure mutual assistance between criminal police authorities 

within the limits of national laws and in the spirit of the 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and to 

establish and develop institutions to suppress ordinary law 

crimes. Unlike normal law enforcement agencies, INTER- 

POL does not make arrests or process criminals; instead, 

it acts as an administrative liaison between dierent police 

organizations, providing communication and database 

assistance—a job that is vitally important given language 

barriers that limit police work across borders. INTERPOL 

also maintains extensive databases of ngerprints, mugshots, 

wanted persons, DNA samples, and travel documents 

of various criminals. It analyzes these databases to provide 

criminal trend information to its member nations. INTER- 

POL also maintains an extensive I-24/7 network that allows 

law enforcement agencies to access these databases via their 

National Central Bureaus. In the event of an international 

disaster, terrorist attack, or assassination, INTERPOL can 

send out an incident response team with the nation’s consent 

or act as the central coordinating network for parties 

involved in the response. Additionally, INTERPOL takes 

on the responsibility of police training and development 

throughout the globe. With a sta of 588, INTERPOL has 

generally seen a positive success rate—leading to 718 arrests 

in 2008, for example. 

Unlike the United Nations in its mandate, powers, and responsibilities, 

INTERPOL has the unique capacity to deter 

international crime in vastly dierent types of organized 

crime. WORLDMUN 2012 will give you the opportunity to 

experience rsthand the capabilities of this organization, as 

well as the urgency and complications that its topics entail. 

Harvard WorldMUN 2012 INTERPOL 6

T OPI C A: W I LDLI FE CRIME 

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 

INTERPOL denes wildlife crime as the “taking, trading, 

exploiting or possessing of the world’s wild ora and 

fauna in contravention of national and international laws.” 1 

Driven by high worldwide demand for exotic pets, rare 

foods, and traditional medicine, illicit wildlife tracking 

has amounted to a US$10 billion black market industry, 2 

and has become an issue fraught with serious consequences 

for the environment, public health, and international 

economic security. 

Wildlife crime drives species toward extinction, sets 

us farther back on environmental goals of sustaining 

biodiversity, and contributes to the spread of various 

zoonotic diseases such as Ebola, SARS, HIV, anthrax, West 

Nile Virus, and avian inuenza. 3 Uncontrolled animal 

and plant harvesting far exceeds natural environments’ 

reproductive capacities and causes overwhelming 

population decline of species that are oen the linchpins 

of their ecosystems, the loss of which carries far-reaching 

implications. 4 Linchpin species are those that have 

become crucial to their ecosystems because of the direct 

environmental and interspecies benet they produce (soil 

enrichment, breakdown of bio-decay, or the provision of 

shade and protection); a high number of predators rely on 

the species for sustenance; and/or a high number of prey 

rely on the species for crowd and population control, as well 

as for evolutionary adaptation. Each species lls a niche in 

its environment, so the extinction of one can tear apart the 

interdependent network, leaving the ecosystem vulnerable 

to eventual collapse. Moreover, poachers tend to capture 

large vertebrates that act as the “keystone species” in their 

ecosystems and that are responsible for keeping population 

levels down at every trophic level. ese larger species are 

nearly impossible to replace, and, without them, species 

found at lower trophic levels lack the impetus for adaptation 

through competition that eventually leads to benecial 

evolutionary change. 5 Larger species are also responsible 

for seed dispersal and germination for up to 75% of tropical 

trees by carrying the seed outside or inside of their bodies 

and having wide traveling ranges, 6 so their extinction 

could result in plant destruction that exacerbates soil loss, 

erosion, and global warming. Localized species loss and the 

ecological deterioration that ensues can compound global 

regulatory systems irreversibly. 7 

In terms of public health, 75% of emerging diseases are 

classied as zoonotic, or originating from a non-human 

species. ese diseases can develop into pandemics when 

microbes are transmitted to a foreign environment due 

to wildlife tracking, which brings humans and injured, 

disease-prone animals into close proximity. 8 Not only does 

the illicit spread of ora and fauna necessarily risk the 

unchecked spread of biologically transmitted viruses, the 

depletion of certain plant species also deprives the public 

of life-saving medications. Existing medicines for lifethreatening 

diseases are approximately 25% plant-made and 

25% animal-made. As biomedical research frequently uses 

animal species as models for human health behavior, we 

stand to reverse years of scientic advancement if natural 

environments are further depleted from the travesty of 

wildlife crime, and, in particular, illicit wildlife tracking. 9 

Elephant killed by poachers in Africa. (http://www.interpol. 

int/public/environmentalcrime/wildlife/default.asp) 

Not only does decreasing biodiversity negatively impact the 

wild and the public, but it also severely impacts countries 

and legitimate service and manufacturing industries around 

the world that rely on wildlife for livelihood and taxes. For 

example, criminal activity on New Zealand deer ranches in 

1986 resulted in the illegal release of hundreds of animals. 

As a result, insurance companies dramatically increased 

premiums for local deer ranchers to the point where several 

had to shut down, causing a loss of livelihood for these 

farmers. 10 Further, wildlife tracking has the potential of 

disrupting global nancial markets due to increasingly 

high demand for its products. 11 Despite existing legal 

frameworks for combating the “bushmeat” epidemic (in 

which large animal species are killed and traded at high 

prices for local sustenance), local enforcement agencies 


are virtually non-existent and international agencies are 

extremely ill-funded. 12 

As John Sellar, a Senior Enforcement Ocer of the 

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species 

of Wild Flora and Fauna, explains, “Banks are covered by 

insurances and the money stolen can therefore be replaced. 

But once the last snow leopard is 

poached, it is gone forever.” 13 The 

criminality, danger, exploitation, 

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species list from extinction. In particular, resurges of 

alligator, crocodile, rhinoceros, and elephant populations 

around the world are credited in large part to CITES’ 

eorts. 20 

However, CITES can only go so far in reversing species 

degradation without the cooperation of domestic law 

enforcement agencies. Much needs to be done to transfer 

the international scientic and management expertise on 

wildlife crime control to regional and local bodies. As an 

example, CITES banned trade in rhino horns as early as 

1977 and ivory in 1983, 21 yet the practice of ivory trade 

still continued ourishing, destroying 97% of rhinoceros 

species and 90% of elephant populations by the 1990s. 22 

Izgrev Topkov, former Secretary-General of CITES, has 

encapsulated the issue quite succinctly: “CITES establishes 

only the framework whereby the participating countries to 

the Convention have agreed to regulate international trade 

in certain species of wild animals and plants. e practical 

aspects of creating an infrastructure to control this trade 

are le up to the countries concerned. It is no secret that 

traditional enforcement methods have largely failed for the 

protection of some African species.” 23 When discussing the 

benets of CITES, it is important for INTERPOL members 

to keep its shortcomings in mind in order to best address 

how to improve its implementation and realization. 

Part of an August 2007 seizure in Russia of 480 bear paws, 

a Siberian tiger pelt and bones, and 20 kg of wild ginseng, 

all destined for China. e smuggling gang involved received 

jail sentences of up to 8 years. (http://www.cawtglobal.org/ 

wildlife-crime) 

In 1994, experts from nine Southern and Eastern 

African nations met in Nairobi, Kenya, to set up the 

1.2 What new-found indicators point to poaching 

as a syndicated crime? 

-Increased use of gangs, vehicles, weapons, and ammunition 

-Violence against law enforcement personnel 

-Corruption of law enforcement personnel using 

monetary or sexual bribes, blackmail, and other 

means 

-Exploitation of civil unrest 

-Financial investment into processing and marketing 

-Attitude of “inviolability” of those involved 

-Sophistication of smuggling routes and techniques 

-Use of “mules” and couriers 

-Sophisticated forgery and counterfeiting of documents 

-Fraudulent advertising for wildlife parts on the 

Internet 

-Connection of known organized crime group 

members to poaching 

-Huge prots in a short time—a known factor in the 

history of organized crime 

rst international African Task Force on illegal wildlife 

tracking. is agreement stems from a 1992 initiative 

from Lusaka, Zambia titled Co-Operative Enforcement 

Operations Directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Flora and 

Fauna. eir initiative is a regional attempt to crack down 

on smuggling syndicates whose operations go beyond 

the reach of any national Law Enforcement Organization 

(LEO). e Task Force meets annually and consists of 

Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, 

Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, along with 

international donors and activists from CITES, INTERPOL, 

and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. 24 Such regional 

eorts are commendable and stand to be replicated in other 

areas of the world. 

PRESENT RELEVANCE 

Today, wildlife crime is becoming increasingly more 

sophisticated and organized (see box) due to advances 

in technology, transportation, and regional conict. 

Wildlife crime is now a signicant factor -- alongside 

habitat destruction, pollution, and exploitation -- in the 

decline of species around the world. 25 As an example, 

rhinoceros poaching has increased dramatically this year, 


leading many to dene it as a syndication crime driven by a 

medicinal demand for rhinoceros horn in the Middle East. 26 

Current cost-benet analyses have been inconclusive due 

to lack of data, but it is well-known that in resource-rich 

developing countries, illicit wildlife trade is a prevalent and 

readily accessible activity that returns high prots because 

of a vast global market in plant and animal parts, as well as 

a reduction in steps of the trade process (compared to other 

industries) that returns greater prots to hunters at the 

ground level. 27 

Not only is wildlife crime a signicant subset of the 

international crime network, it is also tied to terrorism in 

the newly declared “Age of Terror.” Rebel groups turn to 

poaching to fund activities or purchase weapons. Indeed, 

when individuals are monitored by their government or 

sanctioned by the international community, they may nd it 

safer and more undetectable to “barter” precious plants and 

animals for weapons on the international market instead of 

using more traceable monetary currency. In the Democratic 

1.3 CASE STUDY: Regional Conict and Wildlife 

Crime in Somalia 

Before the 1991 Somali Civil War, the country had 

three international airports that were closely monitored 

by customs authorities. During the conict, 

however, a lack of legitimate centralized power allowed 

warlords to establish smaller, privatized airstrips 

that send unchecked goods throughout the Middle 

East and South Asia. As a result, wildlife tracking 

exploded in the region and continues to this day. 

Republic of Congo, rebel groups even threatened to kill 

the nation’s dwindling population of gorillas unless the 

government withdrew from rebel-held areas. 28 is use of 

wildlife as a commodity for terroristic bribery speaks both 

to the value of rare species in international and regional 

markets as well as to the need to link wildlife tracking 

to broader issues in international peace and security. 

e epicenter of wildlife crime appears to be the Horn of 

Africa, where tracking in illicit plants and animal parts 

has skyrocketed, threatening international environmental 

security and public health. 29 Other prominent wildlife trade 

“hotspots” include the Chinese borders, Southern Africa, 

Eastern Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, Indonesia, New 

Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. 30 

Today, “empty forest syndrome” 31 has sadly become a global 

phenomenon of species decline that is best illustrated 

by analyzing the state of various species that were once 

abundant. A 2004 CITES report stated that 4,000 elephants 

were illegally killed every year in the African Range states. 32 

e population of Somali elephants has decreased by 95% 

since 1979. 33 Rhinoceros and tigers are at population levels 

less than 10% of previous numbers. 34 Other aected species 

include aardvarks, hippopotamuses, hyenas, ostriches, sea 

turtles, cheetahs, leopards, lions, and primates. is limited 

list only begins to illustrate the detriment that wildlife crime 

represents for environments and ecosystems around the 

world. 

CURRENT SITUATION—EXACERBATING 

FACTORS 

Now, more than ever, human poverty exacerbates the 

issue of wildlife crime, most notably in resource-rich 

yet developing states in the tropics. Poaching is oen a 

valuable source of livelihood for individuals, tribes, and 

villages that live in bio-diverse regions but suer from 

poverty and underdevelopment. A TRAFFIC Network study 

conrms this trend in Eastern and Southern Africa, where 

reliance on wild meat is growing in response to increased 

human populations and poverty. 35 Occasionally, the practice 

of illegally capturing wildlife is observed as a religious or 

cultural rite, with no regard to regional or international 

laws protecting endangered species. is conict between 

international human rights and cultural autonomy has been 

frequently observed in other areas—including the education 

of women, human sacrice, female genital mutilation, and 

many others. It is important to recognize these cultural 

barriers in the enforcement of international law and human 

rights. Without alternative methods of income readily 

available, young men and, less frequently, women from 

these regions turn increasingly toward organized criminal 

gangs that carry out poaching for regional and international 

consumers. 36 

In the last two decades, civil war and intra-state conict 

push regions increasingly farther from conservation and 

toward the exploitation of natural resources. Conict takes 

a toll on local ecosystems and destroys regular, everyday 

livelihoods, pushing more and more individuals toward 

alternative, illicit avenues of wealth that ourish in a state 

of chaos and deregulation. Local governments, oundering 

to establish security, have very few resources or personnel 

available to enforce regulations, monitor trade, and 


implement preventive measures (see case study). 

Wildlife crime is highly organized and requires extensive 

experience. It thus oen intersects with the tracking of 

drugs, arms, and persons: in all these tracking situations, 

there is a clear delineation between those in control of 

the distribution of illicit goods and those that merely pass 

goods along for a cut of the prots. 37 e latter are far more 

numerous and inexperienced, resulting in greater capture 

by enforcement agents. As such, organizers and decisionmakers 

in tracking gangs are rarely apprehended and 

are able to continue poaching activities simply by hiring 

Display of illegal wildlife products used in Chinese medicine 

conscated by customs ocers at Heathrow Airport, UK. 

((http://www.trac.org/trade) 

replacement lackeys to continue smuggling when the 

originals are arrested. 38 Organized syndicates also practice 

the routine corruption of LEOs in order to continue their 

practices without detection or deterrence. For instance, the 

Indian state of Tamil Nadu has been accused of undergoing 

“arbitrary transfers of capable forest ocers and local 

political patronage to miscreants,” by popular wildlife 

activist Shekar Dattatri. 39 Because of its illicit nature, it 

is very dicult to provide an accurate estimate for the 

net worth of wildlife tracking. Even the most generous 

estimates are probably only 70% accurate. 40 In addition, 

people are slow to recognize the accumulated eects of 

wildlife crime because it aects humans on a public—and 

not an individual—basis. 41 

CURRENT SITUATION—EFFORTS TO ALLEVIATE 

THE PROBLEM 

In November 2009, an International Tiger Consortium 

held in St. Petersburg, Russia signed the International 

Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). e 

Consortium was the cooperative work of the heads of ve 

organizations leading the ght: the CITES, INTERPOL, 

United Nations Oce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the 

World Bank, and the World Customs Organization (WCO). 

e Letter of Understanding advocates maintaining interagency 

cooperation, empowering regional law enforcement 

oces, and fostering a positive local view on conservation. 

Unprecedented in taking a united and strong stance against 

criminal organizations, the document also acknowledges 

that solutions to wildlife crime must also take into account 

human poverty. 42 CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon 

praises the global achievement: “ICCWC sends a very clear 

message that a new era of wildlife law enforcement is upon 

us, one where wildlife criminals will face a determined and 

coordinated opposition, rather than the current situation 

where the risks of detection and of facing penalties that 

match their crimes are oen low.” 43 Despite the promises of 

this newfound Consortium, it will have limited impact on 

the ground unless states are willing to cooperate fully with 

the ICCWC’s regulations and recommendations regarding 

enforcement. 

Wildlife Without Borders, a division of the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service, is currently working in Africa 

to develop capacity-building infrastructure, increase 

technological capability, regulate wildlife markets, and 

address the bushmeat crisis. 44 By working with regional 

governments, WWB helps organize and fund conservation 

research initiatives, conduct training courses for Africa 

law enforcement ocers, and publish curriculum on 

environmental law and CITES. 45 

New Zealand and Germany have wildlife policies that give 

each owner of hunting grounds policing power and arms 

to fend o poachers in his/her territory. Other hunters 

can also be deputized to have policing powers. 46 Local 

people acting as auxiliary game guards have reduced rhino 

poaching in Namibia. 47 Scotland’s Tayside Police has taken 

this initiative a step further. It was the rst local LEO in 

the country to employ a wildlife crime ocer to address 

poaching of birds of prey, deer, hares, and mussels—a move 

applauded by the regional Partnership Against Wildlife 

Crime (PAW). 48 Special attention given to wildlife crime 

on such a level is crucial to the ght against local wildlife 


tracking in many locales. 

Today, there are also a multitude of regional organizations 

that have taken initiative in combating wildlife crime. 

ey include, but are not limited to: the Collaborative 

Partnership on Forests; Forest Law Enforcement 

and Governance; the Ministerial Conference on the 

Protection of Forests in Europe; ASEAN; the Asia Forest 

Partnership; the Congo Basin Forest Partnership; and the 

Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization. 49 While these 

partnerships successfully raised awareness of the issue of 

wildlife crime in various regions, an eective harnessing 

of local energies and resources to devote specically to 

wildlife crime has been lacking. What remains to be done 

is to nd ways to maintain the urgency of wildlife crime 

prevention in states that are consumed by issues of poverty, 

development, conict, and political instability. 

PAST INTERPOL/UN ACTIONS 

Although Wildlife Crime is considered a relatively new 

issue that INTERPOL has taken under its wing, much 

progress has already been made in getting the program 

started. INTERPOL Secretary-General Ronald Noble 

describes INTERPOL’s stance on Environmental Crime and 

Wildlife Crime: “e threat of wildlife and environmental 

crime is one which is taken very seriously by INTERPOL... 

Environmental crime is global the and as the world’s 

largest police organization, INTERPOL is committed, with 

the support of each of our 188 member countries, to build 

on the work already being done in protecting our planet for 

future generations.” 50 

e INTERPOL Wildlife Crime Working Group is an 

annual consortium of concerned representatives of member 

nations responsible for training domestic law enforcement 

ocers on issues relating to wildlife crime. is Working 

Group has four simple mandates: 

!" Improve the exchange of information (including 

criminal intelligence) on persons and companies 

involved in the illegal trade in wild ora and fauna; 

!" Support investigations into illegal activities related 

to wildlife crime by improving national, regional 

and international law enforcement; 

!" Exchange information on methods and trends in 

this illegal trade with the purpose of developing a 

more proactive approach; 

!" Develop training and information documents 

needed for the investigators. 51 

In order to achieve these goals, annual meetings are 

Ivory seized in Nairobi, Kenya by the 2009 INTERPOLcoordinated 

Operation Costa. (http://www.wildlifeextra.com/ 

go/news/ivory-seizure938.html#cr) 

mandated, and any concerned member of INTERPOL can 

attend. 

In 2006, INTERPOL appointed a Wildlife Crime 

Programme ocer who coordinates with the Working 

Group. INTERPOL expanded this oce in 2008 with the 

appointment of a Criminal Intelligence Ocer for Wildlife 

Crime. It has published several documents relevant to the 

issue, including the Practical Guide for CITES Managing 

Authorities. e practical guide details the activities of 

INTERPOL and CITES and makes recommendations for 

collaboration between CITES Management Authorities and 

INTERPOL National Central Bureaus in every state. 52 On its 

website, INTERPOL also compiles a list of relevant Wildlife 

News for access by member states and the concerned public. 

Similarly to its mandates on other issues, INTERPOL 


works to coordinate wildlife crime arrests. In July 2009, 

INTERPOL aided in the largest international operation— 

Operation Costa—targeting wildlife crime in East Africa, 

resulting in the seizure of hundreds of tons of ivory and the 

arrests of several hundred people. is hugely successful 

operation was in response to the request to INTERPOL by 

several African Range states for assistance in maintaining 

their elephant populations. However, while this success is 

certainly praise-worthy, it is important to remember that 

environmental issues are far from solved by the successful 

capture of perpetrators and conscation of contraband. 

As INTERPOL’s Peter Younger explains: “While taking 

these illegal items o the market is important, it is not the 

whole story…What Operation Costa will also enable law 

enforcement both in Africa and further aeld, is identify 

the routes being used by smugglers, their connections and 

ultimately lead to the arrest of other individuals involved in 

these crimes.” 53 e ultimate protection of domestic species 

will be in the hands of national authorities, who may not be 

best equipped, but are certainly most appropriate and most 

conducive to long-term maintenance of sustainable wildlife 

levels in their borders. 

e UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal 

Justice (CCPCJ) houses an Open-ended Expert Group on 

International Cooperation in Preventing Tracking in 

Forest Products, which makes recommendations to member 

nations, other UN organs, and international and local law 

enforcement on how to combat wildlife crime, among 

others. In Resolution 16/1, the Expert Group recommends 

fostering international cooperation by prosecuting wildlife 

crime under the framework of the UN Convention against 

Transnational Organized Crime and the UN Convention 

against Corruption—two viable frameworks that deserve 

further exploration by this committee in its upcoming 

session. 

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS 

Solutions that have become notable in the literature on 

wildlife crime are presented below. is list is by no 

means exhaustive; indeed, it is imperative to nd even more 

exible and creative solutions at the conference in order to 

deal with the issue comprehensively. 

Overarching Solutions 

Studies have shown that increasing detectability is a 

better deterrent for crime than increasing punishments. 54 

When wildlife tracking activities are rarely detected 

or apprehended, the level of punishment becomes less 

of a credible threat, negating any positive impact that a 

An example of an outdoor media campaign to raise awareness about wildlife tracking in Hanoi, Vietnam (April 2011). 

(www.freeland.org) 


harsher punishment could have on wildlife crime. To that 

end, INTERPOL should train domestic LEOs in detection 

and reporting systems using advanced technology, public 

vigilance, and education campaigns. 

Internet and communication technology is being used 

increasingly by criminal organizations in the practice 

of wildlife crime. Not only do eorts to combat wildlife 

crime need to incorporate this factor, they must also use 

technology in positive eorts to facilitate legal trade and 

help consumers stay within the law. 55 is involves not only 

utilizing and training on new technologies, but also making 

use of social media to involve the public in eorts to reduce 

wildlife crime. Signicant amounts of investment in local 

LEOs to maintain the technical capacity are necessary 

to undergo successful enforcement of this issue on an 

international scale. 

It is vital to form better relationships between wildlife 

activists, public informers, and local forest departments. 

With a quicker and more integrated intelligence network 

built in, people with passion about the issue would have 

a greater chance to feel involved beyond volunteering in 

a monitoring capacity. Similarly, relationships need to 

be established among nations in the same region, as this 

cooperation is crucial in combating trans-border criminal 

wildlife syndicates active in more than one country. 

Creative/Alternative Solutions 

In June 2011, the Center for International Forestry 

Research (CIFOR) and the Convention on Biological 

Diversity (CBD) convened in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss 

regulation of the bushmeat trade in Africa and alternatives 

to bushmeat use. 56 One simple solution discussed was the 

involvement of local communities in revenue-generating 

wildlife management and conservation practices, such 

as tourism. e convention also discussed sustainable 

harvesting of non-forest products, through practices such as 

beekeeping. In addition, “mini-livestock” such as cane rats 

could be farmed for food and income—a practice already 

observed in much of Africa. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive 

Secretary of the CBD enthusiastically praised the solution: 

“We see legitimate subsistence hunting being replaced 

by commercial hunting and trade of oen endangered 

species in tropical forests, including elephants and 

primates.” 57 

Professional lecturer and conservationist Charles Bergman 

oers a dierent perspective on the paradoxical systems of 

legal and illegal trade in exotic wildlife. Using the parrots 

of South America as an example, Bergman demonstrated 

to several public audiences that meaningful enforcement of 

laws against illegal trade is stymied by “loopholes” allowing 

subsistence use of exotic wildlife by indigenous populations. 

According to the environmentalist, “Stop the legal trade and 

the illegal trade will stop.” 58 ough such a denitive stance 

may not be warranted, the intersection between legal and 

illegal wildlife trade is worth exploring as a committee when 

discussing potential solutions. 

QUESTIONS A RESOLUTION MUST ANSWER 

!" How should INTERPOL’s capacity to deal with 

Wildlife Crime be changed to reect its growing 

prominence and connection to other organized 

syndicate crimes? 

!" What can be done to better promulgate and share 

information and resources between organizations at 

all levels of power and prominence? 

!" Why have enforcement eorts been largely failing 

in various areas, and what can INTERPOL do to 

localize enforcement eorts? 

!" Have past public campaigns against wildlife crime 

been successful? If not, how can they be improved 

to stem the consumer/demand end of wildlife 

tracking? 

!" How can technology be integrated into the 

understanding and addressing of wildlife crime 

issues? 

!" What is the appropriate punishment for arrested 

wildlife criminals, taking into account the value 

of deterrence when dealing with natural, limited 

resources? Is it appropriate for INTERPOL to assign 

a punishment or even a punishment range for such 

crimes? 

KEY ACTORS 

Position & History Of Various Actors 

CITES was established in the 1960s when the discussion 

of illicit wildlife trade was relatively new. It was 

conceived in the spirit of cooperation to safeguard certain 

endangered plant and animal species from exploitation. 

e 1963 World Conservation Union draed CITES 

into being. With 175 voluntarily participating members, 

it is the largest international conservation agreement. 

CITES works by subjecting international trade in certain 

specimen to authorization through a licensing system. 

Each member party appoints a Management Authority and 

Scientic Authority to administer the system and provide 


advice on the eects of trade, respectively. CITES’ overall 

goals include committing and assisting member states 

to produce legislation, administrative procedures, and 

conservation resources. CITES also works with various 

international nancial mechanisms to fund its projects on 

bio-conservation. It is additionally involved in conservation 

projects with other organizations and the overall increasing 

of public awareness on the issue of wildlife crime. 59 

e Coalition Against Wildlife Tracking (CAWT) seeks 

to focus public awareness on the issue of wildlife tracking 

and crime. Launched in 2005, CAWT is a public-private 

voluntary coalition of governments and organizations that 

are passionate about the issue. Working to support CITES 

enforcement eorts, CAWT seeks to expand enforcement 

training and information sharing by: strengthening regional 

networks; raising awareness and thus reducing consumer 

demand for illicit wildlife products; and catalyzing highlevel 

political will about the issue. By encouraging its 

members to work “independently and cooperatively,” 

CAWT facilitates resource, information, and contact 

exchange and promotes collaboration on a variety of joint 

projects and initiatives. 60 

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) started in 1961 as a small 

group of wildlife enthusiasts, but is now a global, multicultural, 

and non-political organization that reaches 

50 million members in over 100 countries. Its mission 

includes conserving biodiversity, ensuring sustainability, 

and reducing pollution. WWF seeks out solutions to the 

problem of illicit wildlife trade with a multi-pronged 

approach. It advocates persuading consumers to make 

informed choices in wildlife-based products; encouraging 

sustainable local use of wildlife; working with the private 

sector; and supporting the enforcement of appropriate 

wildlife trade laws (by supporting CITES, supplying 

training and tools, encouraging cross-border cooperation, 

funding research, and raising public awareness). e WWF 

Trade and Investment Programme work with national 

governments to ensure that policies of trade organizations 

such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) do not 

override environmental provisions. Annually, WWF 

publishes the “Living Planet Report,” with updated 

information on human use of natural resources. Regional 

WWF programs run specically for the protection 

of certain species, such as African great apes, rhinos, 

elephants, and tigers. More recently, WWF has secured 

the protection under CITES of several new marine and 

timber species such as the great white shark and the Asian 

commercial timber species, ramin. 61 

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, “works 

to ensure that trade in wild plants and animals is not 

a threat to the conservation of nature.” Established in 

1976, it is a research-oriented, independent organization 

with an admirable reputation. Working closely with 

WWF and CITES, TRAFFIC Network aims to support 

sustainability and provide solutions to illicit wildlife trade 

by working with those involved in wildlife trade—dealers, 

middlemen, and decision-makers—the environmental 

harm of irresponsible wildlife trade. TRAFFIC also works 

with lawmakers and the judiciary in various countries and 

intergovernmental organizations to ensure that proper laws 

dealing with wildlife trade are created and enforced. 62 

BLOC POSITIONS 

Developed countries generally comply with CITES and 

INTERPOL on the issue of wildlife crime. ey tend 

to approach the issue from the standpoint of the market, 

as they provide a large majority of the consumer demand 

for illicit wildlife tracking. Resolutions from this bloc 

will thus try to put pressure on preventing wildlife crime 

or catching criminals en transit, rather than any eorts 

on their part to abate demand among their population. 

Nevertheless, developed countries have much to oer in 

terms of technological expertise in tracking the transaction 

of wildlife crime via the Internet. 

Developing countries are also voluntarily compliant, 

though they tend to seek more economic incentives from 

CITES in order to comply with its provisions. ey tend 

to emphasize the obligation of developed nations to stem 

consumer demand for illicit wildlife products. Many 

developing countries are also resource-rich, and thus avidly 

try to protect their natural species for the sake of their 

economic livelihood and a source for economic growth 

and expansion. at being said, developing countries must 

also take into account the position of their indigenous and 

poor populations who may poach for subsistence, cultural 

rite, or religious purposes—and account for this dynamic in 

committee by either making an exception for these groups 

or taking up oers to promote sustainable alternative 

resources to these groups. Being resource-rich, developing 

countries can also be knowledge-rich; it is important for 

the committee to harness their expertise in local matters, 

including dealings with local LEOs, the needs of particular 

species, and the needs of indigenous populations. 

Beyond these basic divisions, geographic regions may nd it 

advantageous to advocate in INTERPOL for any protective 


projects that benet their area or species they hold dear. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 

For further information about wildlife crime, the rst 

resource to consider is the INTERPOL Working 

Group on Wildlife Crime, which lists several news articles 

relevant to the issue: http://www.interpol.int/public/ 

EnvironmentalCrime/Wildlife/news/Default2008.asp. 

Further research can be found on the websites of all 

the key actors, listed above: 

!" CITES: www.cites.org 

!" CAWT: www.cawtglobal.org 

!" WWF: wwf.panda.org 

!" TRAFFIC: www.trac.org 

Valuable academic and online journals dealing with 

environmental issues with free online content include 

Ecologist, Environmental Protection, Geotimes, and World 

Watch. Your university may also have a subscription to paid 

online journals such as JSTOR. You can inquire at your 

library to see if you can access articles that provide deeper 

analysis of the intricacies of the issue or provide specic 

examples of successful solutions. 

You may also nd it helpful to explore the environmental 

and wildlife policy of your state, via its Environmental 

Department or a similar national organization. If no 

country information is readily available, consider a regional 

organization’s position; in issues of trade and environmental 

protection, blocs of nations may oen have similar views. 

As always, please feel free to contact me at lisawang@ 

college.harvard.edu should you have any additional 

questions. 

T OPI C B: C OUNTERFEI T 

P HARMA CEUTI C A LS 

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 

The World Health Organization (WHO) denes 

counterfeit medicines as those medicines that are 

deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to 

identity and/or source. 63 Generally, they lack an important 

ingredient, contain a harmful ingredient, or are mislabeled. 

Some of the most commonly counterfeited drugs include 

those for erectile dysfunction, depression, anxiety, and 

infection. 64 

e production of substandard or fake drugs is a vast, 

underreported, and growing problem, particularly 

aecting poorer countries. Up to 15% of all sold drugs are 

counterfeited, and this number rises to 50% in some parts 

of Africa. 65 According to the United States Food and Drug 

Administration (FDA), 10% of the global medicine market 

constitutes counterfeit drugs—comprising an annual 

industry of US$35 billion. 66 According to WHO, three in 10 

pharmaceutical products in the combined African, Asian 

1.4 What are some recent examples of counterfeit 

drug production/use and government responses? 

-During the 1995 meningitis epidemic in Niger, 

authorities received a shipment of 88,000 vaccines 

from neighboring Nigeria. Only aer 60,000 people 

received the fake vaccine did ocials discover that the 

shipment was counterfeited, lacking any trace of the 

active ingredient. e crisis resulted in 2,500 deaths. 

-Five hundred people, predominantly children, have 

died in the 1990s in Bangladesh, Nigeria, India, Haiti, 

and Argentina aer ingesting fake paracetamol syrup, 

which contained used a toxin, diethylene glycol (antifreeze), 

during production. 

-Approximately one-third to one-half of the artesunate 

tablets, the pivotal life-saving anti-malarial drug, 

bought in Southeast Asia was counterfeit, as discovered 

by a medical NGO. All of them lacked the active 

ingredient. WHO estimates that 200,000 people die 

annually from malaria due to substandard medication. 

-In 2001, China closed down 1300 factories aer 

investigating 480,000 cases of counterfeit drug production 

worth US$57 million. ree years later, aer 

substandard infant formula killed 50 infants, China 

arrested 22 manufacturers and closed three factories. 

-In 2005, counterfeit anti-retrovirals discovered in 

central and sub-Saharan Africa threatens to set back 

the ght against AIDS in the region. 

and Latin American markets are fake. Further, 50 to 60 

percent of anti-infective medications in parts of Asia and 

Africa have been shown to have active ingredients outside 

of acceptable limits. 67 

Despite cooperation between drug companies, countries, 


and international trade organizations such as INTERPOL, 

counterfeit drug production still causes an unnecessarily 

high level of morbidity, mortality, and loss of faith in 

traditional medicine and health structures. Not only is 

quality compromised when pharmaceuticals are illicitly 

produced, but safety becomes a major concern as well. 

Products are stored in unsatisfactory conditions such as 

insucient or excessive light, pressure, humidity, and 

temperature. Nevertheless, there is a generally trusting 

attitude from customers of counterfeit pharmaceuticals 

who believe the medical advice dealers provide– a faith 

that can be credited to a lack of education in national 

and international health standards or general cultural 

norms that create a dangerous level of trust among 

ethnic and religious minority groups. 68 Consequences of 

consuming or utilizing counterfeit pharmaceuticals can 

range from inconvenience to unwanted pregnancies to 

fatality, constituting a major public health risk, especially 

in developing countries. 69 Ingredients that can be found 

in counterfeit drugs include highway paint, oor wax, and 

even boric acid. 70 As a result, negative pictures emerge 

from around the world: approximately 192,000 people were 

estimated to have died in China in 2001 because of fake 

drugs. 71 In 2007, a Chinese ocial was even executed for 

approving fake medicines. 72 

In addition to the direct impact on victims’ health, 

substandard medicines can also promote microbial 

resistance. As the UN Oce on Drugs and Crime 

(UNODC) explains: “Health experts have warned that 

each under-medicated patient becomes an evolutionary 

vector through which ‘superbugs’ can develop, posing a 

global threat to public health.” 73 In other words, by allowing 

the disease to fester in the human system untreated or 

undertreated by counterfeit drugs, countries inadvertently 

provide the germs or viruses that lead to the illness the 

necessary time to adapt to existing medicines – prolonging 

the disease for many future generations. Oen, important 

information about the drug—such as expiration date, 

warnings, ingredients, or dosage instructions—is oen 

lacking, un- or poorly translated, or even purposely 

skewed in order to sell more of the drug. Vendors, oen 

uneducated, distribute dosages in arbitrary amounts and 

oer the patient no accountability for any injury he or she 

sustains from the use of counterfeit drugs. 74 Yet because 

the nature of the counterfeit drug industry is so illicit, 

consumers frequently receive little assistance or guidance 

from healthcare systems that are overwhelmed by the sheer 

volume of potential cases arising from the distribution of 

counterfeit pharmaceuticals. 

Counterfeit drugs also have serious developmental and 

economic consequences. In developing countries, they 

reduce the protability of region-specic markets, curbing 

foreign investment and incentives for pharmaceutical 

industries to research diseases endemic to those regions. 

75 Because potential prots for new and legitimate drugs 

against life-threatening diseases are siphoned o to the 

counterfeit industry (which is able to provide lower costs 

due to lower quality), global pharmaceutical companies 

view developing markets as unable to return the signicant 

investment costs required for researching and developing 

vaccines and therapies for diseases such as AIDS, malaria, 

tuberculosis, and syphilis. As a result, much-needed 

research that could potentially save millions of lives each 

year goes neglected; health research companies nd their 

sales have declined by as much as 30% by some estimates 

due to counterfeiting. 76 

Counterfeit drugs also squander limited health resources 

when health consequences from altered drugs arise, 

diverting these resources from other treatment purposes. In 

developing countries especially, underfunded and underresourced 

healthcare networks are already stretched thin 

with their disproportionate share of the global disease 

burden; to be additionally strained by a disproportionate 

share of international counterfeit pharmaceutical 

health consequences spells disaster for the millions of 

people battling life-threatening illnesses in the region. 

Unfortunately, most of the current literature on counterfeit 

drugs comes from local investigative journalism, with 

little scientically broad public health inquiry to estimate 

the scale to which people are aected. 77 It thus becomes 

paramount for INTERPOL to bring this under-discussed 

issue to international lens and deliberate on what possible 

solutions exist to this burgeoning global industry that 

threatens the ght against deathly disease on multiple 

fronts. 

HISTORY AND DISCUSSION OF THE PROBLEM 

Origin Of Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals 

The quality and purity of medications have been 

counterfeited since antiquity. Fraudulent drugs have 

been cited in documents dating back to the fourth century 

BC, and the problem of counterfeit medicines has persisted 

throughout the centuries. 78 Since medicine is high value 

relative to bulk (meaning its price per unit weight or 

volume is much higher than other commodities) with 

demand being constant at a wide range of prices, there is 

huge economic incentive to undergo patent infringement 


and counterfeiting. 79 is incentive is bolstered by the 

historically low detection rate of counterfeit medicines as 

a result of (1) poor police training on the matter; (2) the 

myriad types of legitimate drugs and therapeutic devices 

currently in existence; and (3) greater attention and ease of 

conscation on counterfeit luxury goods such as handbags, 

clothing, and shoes. 

Evolution rough History 

By 1985, WHO convened a Conference of Experts on the 

Rational Use of Drugs in Nairobi, Kenya. e conference’s 

outcomes included a recommendation to establish 

an organization with responsibility for obtaining and 

distributing data to governments regarding the nature and 

amplitude of counterfeit drugs. 80 From 1997 to 2010, the 

number of reports (mostly from law enforcement agencies, 

medical sta, and local community activists) of counterfeit 

drugs roughly quadrupled due to these early eorts. 81 

e International Convention against Counterfeit Drugs, 

created in Madrid, Spain in 2004, provided a framework 

for promoting international cooperation and exchange 

of information. 82 Two Global Forums on Pharmaceutical 

Counterfeiting have been held, most recently in 2005, 

involving representatives from pharmaceutical companies, 

governments, medical and scientic communities, law 

enforcement agencies, nongovernmental organizations, 

and private investors, to discuss the growing problems in 

the pharmaceutical industry. 83 Despite these signicant 

advances in the global arena, much remains to be done on 

a national and local scale to cut back on counterfeit drug 

production and trade. 

PRESENT RELEVANCE 

Today, the World Bank estimates that between 1/3 and 1/2 

of all sick people use the “parallel pharmaceutical market,” 

or the system of traditional, home-based, or black market 

treatment that lies outside the realm of modern medical 

facilities. is parallel market is characterized by several 

themes: 

!" Contraband: clandestine importation to avoid 

duties or circumvent legal controls; 

!" Unauthorized sales: pharmaceutical wholesalers 

illegally selling directly to clients rather than 

chemists; 

!" e and misappropriation: stolen 

pharmaceuticals from hospitals and pharmacies 

are then introduced to the international market; 

and 

!" Counterfeit products: produced locally or 

imported. 84 

ough getting counterfeit drugs at a pharmacy 

is possible, it is extremely rare. More oen than not, 

counterfeit drugs are bought over the internet; recently, the 

FDA accused 294 websites of selling counterfeit drugs to 

consumers—many of which looked, in packaging as well 

as drug shape and size, exactly like the original. 85 Every 

day, counterfeits are being seized around the world. Most 

recently, pharmaceutical giant Pzer worked with law 

enforcement ocers in a seizure of 8.3 million doses of 

counterfeit pharmaceuticals, approximately 57% of which 

was Viagra. 86 

Typical sellers are poorly educated young males who picked 

A collection of counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs seized by 

the NAFDAC in Nigeria. (PLoS Medicine vol. 4) 

up the illicit sales as just another means of survival. ough 

they remain loyal to one another and are thus able to avoid 

capture, they rarely make signicant prots, usually because 

they are charged steep prices at hospitals and pharmacies. 

To get around the high front-fees, many turn to wholesalers 

or individual traders to secure their stocks. 87 On the other 

hand, traders and wholesalers—unlike vendors—oen 


Simvastatin tablets ordered via the Internet. (A) is the genuine product while (B)-(E) were faked in Mexico. Spectroscopic images, 

below, show the active ingredient as bright dots. (Science vol. 305) 

represent criminal organizations that experience high 

returns for relatively low risk when dealing in counterfeit 

drugs. As Yury Fedotow, Executive Director of the United 

Nations Oce on Drug and Crime (UNODC) explains: 

“Fraudulent medicines oer organised criminal groups a 

high-return commodity with relatively low risks, ultimately 

at the expense of the health of unsuspecting people.” 88 is 

asymmetric prot situation between wholesalers and sellers 

is frequently channeled by law enforcement ocers (LEOs) 

seeking to access information about organized criminals 

through lower-level oenders. LEOs will occasionally oer 

to lower or revise the sentences of sellers in exchange for 

information leading to the arrest or capture of wholesalers 

and traders responsible in large part for the counterfeit 

pharmaceutical crisis. 

CURRENT SITUATION – EXACERBATING FACTORS 

In its 1999 Guidelines for the Development of Measures 

to Combat Counterfeit Drugs, 89 WHO identied several 

basic factors that exacerbate the manufacture and sale of 

counterfeit drugs, especially in developing regions: 

!" Lack of legislation regarding the regulation of 

the pharmaceutical distribution system; 

!" Weak or absent drug regulatory authority; 

!" Absence of a legal mandate for licensing of 

manufacture/import of drugs; 

!" Lack of enforcement of existing regulations; 

!" Transactions involving many intermediaries; 

!" Demand for pharmaceuticals exceeding supply; 

!" High prices of legitimate pharmaceuticals; 

!" Sophistication of clandestine drug 

manufacturing; 

!" Inecient cooperation among stakeholders; 

and 

!" Lack of regulation by exporters and within free 

trade zones. 

Other unlisted factors that are extraneous to the healthcare 

system include technological advances, economic 

conditions, alternative medicine options (such as religious 

healing rituals, etc.), culture (i.e., a proclivity to selfmedicate 

rather than seek clinical treatment), and the 

delineation between prescription and nonprescription 

drugs. 90 Advanced technology, underdeveloped or unequal 

economic conditions, a lack of alternative medicine 

options, a culture of self-medication, and a lack of or 

poorly enforced prescription medication system all lead to 

an environment conducive to counterfeit pharmaceutical 

proliferation. As Temple University pharmacoeconomist 

Albert Wertheimer elaborates, “Drug counterfeiting is 

a threat that every nation faces and the activity is very 

dicult to identify, trace, and combat. e growth of online 

drug sales, counterfeiters’ increasing technologic skill, and a 

false sense of security in countries with stringent regulatory 

measures are among the factors that are enabling the spread 

of this criminal activity.” 91 

For developing nations, the existence of pharmaceutical 

patents protecting the intellectual property of drug 

developers is the main driving force for the high reliance on 

counterfeit drugs. According to Yashuhiro Suzuki of WHO, 

“A deadly combination of demand for cheap drugs and fat 

prot margins makes counterfeit drugs irresistibly attractive 

to greedy criminals.” 92 Patent rights drive up the cost of 

authentic medications, causing patients in developing 

nations to turn increasingly to the illicit industry for the 

products that have become prohibitively costly. is 

view, held by prominent economist Noam Chomsky, 

would suggest a solution of governments subsidizing 

the pharmaceutical industry and imposing strict price 

controls. It would also suggest the relaxing of patent laws 

and standards to allow more generic drug production, as 


Genuine and fake Guilin Pharma Artesunate Blister Pack Holograms found in mainland Southeast Asia. (A) is the genuine 

hologram while (B) and (C) are fakes. (PLoS Medicine vol. 4) 

advocated for by countries such as India and Brazil in the 

WHO. 93 

Various factors hamper government regulation of the 

counterfeit drug industry, including shortage of money, 

corruption, and a lack of technical expertise. 94 Many 

governments and pharmaceutical companies report 

that they are reluctant to publicize information on the 

counterfeit drug problem to the public because they are 

afraid that the negative publicity will harm the sales of 

brand-name products because people may become reluctant 

to take their medicines at all. 95 As a result, companies 

investigate and shut down counterfeit industries privately, 

without giving the public ample warning about which 

items may be counterfeited at a certain locality – causing an 

understandable level of confusion. As a 1999 WHO report 

stated, “[t]he reluctance of the pharmaceutical industry, 

wholesalers and retailers to report drug counterfeiting to 

the national drug regulatory authorities could impede the 

national authorities from successfully taking measures 

against counterfeiting.” 96 People are thus deprived of a 

central database in many countries to receive warnings of 

suspected counterfeit drug production. e WHO currently 

has such a system, but it has not been updated for many 

years, lacks information on location of counterfeit drug 

production, and relies heavily on governments to selfreport. 

97 Without an eective enforcement mechanism 

in place, this system will remain mediocre in potency 

at best. Regardless of whether a local, country, regional, 

or international database is most appropriate—there 

is no question that an improved and more eective 

database is sorely required. Governments may even nd 

that their eorts to industrialize by encouraging private 

enterprise may unknowingly cause the informal 

market in items such as pharmaceuticals to grow, since 

privatization necessarily requires the weakening of state 

regulatory institutions that control pharmaceutical 

trade. 98 is problem will most directly impact countries 

emerging from conict situations or in the process of 

transitioning toward democracy, most frequently in the 

Latin American, African, and Middle Eastern regions. 

In addition, the recent explosion in Internet usage 

and social media has caused a concurrent spike in 

counterfeit drug production and trade, since they oer 

a relatively unmonitored illicit avenue and market for 

the spread of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. As a result, 

common drugs such as Lipitor (for high cholesterol), 

Procrit (for anemia and fatigue), and Viagra (for erectile 

dysfunction) are frequently counterfeited and sold 

to unsuspecting consumers. 99 International trade in 

general in pharmaceutical ingredients and medicines 

has increased dramatically, leading to complications due 

to lack of regulation in designated free trade zones or 

through various brokers. In these instances, medicines are 

frequently repackaged and relabeled to conceal country of 

origin. 100 

CURRENT SITUATION: EFFORTS TO ALLEVIATE 

THE PROBLEM 

Ocials are currently looking into advanced 

techniques to halt the spread of counterfeit drugs. 

ese proposals are not just limited to the creation 

of an international database to track counterfeit drug 

production and trade, although this is perhaps the most 

important priority. One such alternative proposal is a 


Police in Jakarta burned seized counterfeit drugs in 2007. 

Indonesia was participating in an international eort to 

combat counterfeit medical products in Southeast Asia. 

(Ahmad Zamroni for AFP/Getty Images) 

pedigree system, 101 which would record the path of 

ownership and location of a drug shipment. Each purchaser 

along the supply chain would add information about the 

drug and verify its authenticity. Diculties in this solution 

remain in enforcement, as there is no appropriate or 

apparent body—nor the necessary resources—to enforce 

the recording of ownership at every level. Nevertheless, 

such an idea warrants further exploration, at the very 

least on a local level. Another idea is the use of sensors, 

inert substances added to a liquid or pill to verify its 

authenticity—condential information known only to 

ocials in the pharmaceutical industry. is solution, 

however, may have limited impact in nations that cannot 

aord the pharmaceuticals themselves, to speak nothing 

of the advanced technology necessary to protect the 

pharmaceuticals’ authenticity. If pharmaceutical companies 

agreed or were required to take up the costs of adding 

sensors, however, developing countries could gain greater 

protections to their drug industry, comparable to those 

in place in developed nations. Proposals are also being 

borrowed from the retail industry: radiofrequency 

identication would involve tagging drugs in the same way 

as clothing is tagged. 102 

PAST INTERPOL/UN ACTIONS 

In its 1999 Guidelines for the Development of Measures 

to Combat Counterfeit Drugs, the WHO provided an 

overview of the problem and discussed specic measures 

at the local, national, and international levels to combat 

counterfeit drugs. In this document, the WHO proposed 

a series of broader national strategies as well as more 

specic measures. e major recommendations are to 

know one’s drug suppliers and not to purchase from 

suppliers unknown in the eld. Also, pharmacists should 

be vigilant for any telltale signs in drug packaging, such as 

any slight divergences from the norm. 103 

In 2006, the WHO helped create the International 

Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce, or 

IMPACT, with the aim of involving several stakeholders 

in collaborative eorts to prevent people from buying 

and taking counterfeit pharmaceuticals and to prevent 

the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit 

medicines. IMAPCT focuses on legislative and 

regulatory infrastructure, enforcement, technology, and 

communication. 104 

IMPACT recently led Pangea III, an operation coordinated 

by INTERPOL, the World Customs Organization (WCO), 

the Permanent Forum of International Pharmaceutical 

Crime (PFIPC), and the Heads of Medicines Agencies 

Working Group of Enforcement Ocers (HMA WGEO). 

Carried out in October 2010, the operation involved 

police, customs, and national medicine regulators with 

support from Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the 

electronic payment system, and the delivery service. 

INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble stated 

about the operation: 

“rough a multi-sector operation involving 

law enforcement and health, INTERPOL’s key 

objective in Operation Pangea III was to alert 

and protect members of the public by assisting 

our 188 member countries shut down illegal 

pharmaceutical websites, chase money ows back 

to the sources behind these illicit pharmaceutical 

products which represent such a threat to the 

health of the public…While this international 

operation, the third of its kind, shows that 

criminals attempting to use the Internet as an 

anonymous safe haven are not safe anymore, 

we hope that that by raising public awareness 

about the dangers of illegal Internet pharmacies, 

consumers will exercise greater care when 


purchasing medicines online.” 105 

During the operation, 45 countries reported to the 

INTERPOL General Secretariat a total of 694 websites, 

290 of which were shut down. Additionally, 290 thousand 

packages were inspected by customs due to this operation, 

11 thousand of which were seized (containing one million 

illicit and counterfeit pills and totaling US$2.6 million). 

Some 76 individuals are now under investigation in 

connection to these seizures. 106 is meeting of INTERPOL 

should address methods to replicate the success of Pangea 

Seized counterfeit erectile dysfunction drugs, found in Montreal 

by Canadian police. (Royal Canadian Mounted Police Force) 

III while improving on its communication shortcomings 

and to also address various areas that will need to be 

identied by INTERPOL members. 

In connection to Operation Pangea III, INTERPOL has 

created a general public alert service on its YouTube 

channel, which has a series of “Don’t Be Your Own 

Killer” videos highlighting the dangers of illegal Internet 

pharmacies. Many of these include personal testimonies 

from individuals who were negatively aected by 

counterfeit medicines. 107 You can view the videos at http:// 

www.youtube.com/user/INTERPOLHQ. 

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS 

Prominent solutions that have become notable in the 

literature on counterfeit pharmaceuticals are presented 

below. is list is by no means exhaustive; indeed, it 

is imperative to nd even more exible and creative 

solutions at the conference in order to deal with the issue 

comprehensively. 

e eective control of the global epidemic of counterfeit 

drugs will need a multifaceted approach: 

!" the provision of eective, available, and 

inexpensive drugs through, for example, 

support for generic drug manufacturers and 

researchers; 

!" the enforcement of drug regulation through 

various international, national, and regional 

actors; 

!" more openness by governments and private 

drug manufacturers as to the scale of the 

problem; 

!" more eective police action against the 

counterfeiters and those who may be corrupt 

allies within government and industry; 

!" enhanced cooperation between the industry, 

police, customs, and drug regulators; and 

!" enhanced education of patients, drug sellers, 

and health workers to the dangers of counterfeit 

pharmaceuticals and ways to combat the 

problem. 

Pharmaceutical companies, who are oen the 

rst to hear about counterfeit drug problems as they 

have a direct interest in squashing this industry, should 

have a mandated timeline to report their ndings to the 

government or to the public. In the United States, for 

example, companies have to alert the Food and Drug 

Administration (FDA) within ve days of discovery of 

suspected counterfeit drugs. 108 For poorer countries with 

weaker governmental institutions, this committee may 

consider creating a reporting structure underneath an 

appropriate international or regional body. Governments 

should then be encouraged to adopt a higher standard of 

mandatory reporting to the public when a counterfeit drug 

problem arises. is should translate into a legal duty to 

investigate, issue appropriate public warnings, and share 

information with the international community or regional 

partners who may also be aected. Aer assessing the 

public health importance and impact of the counterfeit 

drugs, national drug regulatory authorities should be 

required to alert police, trade, and customs authorities 

with the assistance of INTERPOL. National authorities 

should also be pushed to protect reporters of counterfeit 

drugs from retribution and, to the greatest extent possible, 

the originating company’s reputation. is last component 

is crucial in maintaining the willing cooperation and 

assistance from drug companies in the ght against 

counterfeit pharmaceuticals. 

If reporting becomes more enforced, a more thorough and 


eective database can be created either by updating the 

current WHO database (see chart below) or by creating a 

new and improved database under INTERPOL. Here is an 

example of what the current WHO database would look 

like, using actual examples that have been self-reported by 

the countries that are involved: 109 

Counterfeit Medicine Country Year Report 

Anti-diabetic traditional 

medicine (used to lower 

blood sugar) 

Metakeln (antimalarial) United Repub- 

Viagris and Cialis (for erectile 

dysfunction) 

Xenical (for ghting obesity) 

Zyprexa (for treating bipolar 

disorder and schizophrenia) 

Lipitor (for lowering cholesterol) 

From examining this current chart, several trends are 

notable. For one, it is clear from this sample that though 

industrial nations tend to experience counterfeit medicines 

at a far lower rate than developing nations, they are 

represented in half of these entries due to a greater tendency 

to self-report counterfeit examples. is may be due to more 

monitoring and enforcement capacity, stronger government 

institutions, greater telecommunication capabilities, and 

governments that are typically more independent from 

private pharmaceutical companies’ inuence. In addition, it 

is notable that the report is short, lacking information about 

exact locations in these nations that are in danger, as well 

as bordering countries that may be aected. An eective 

international database would do well to include additional 

categories of analysis, including, but not limited to: volume 

of drugs conscated; companies which may be impacted; 

names of any individuals, organizations, or websites 

connected to the counterfeiting; and estimated monetary 

value of the counterfeit drugs discovered. 

International agreements between companies to avoid 

taking advantage of competitors’ misfortunes when 

precipitated by rumors or conrmed reports of fake 

drugs may facilitate enhanced cooperation within the 

pharmaceutical industry to report the discovery of 

counterfeit drugs. INTERPOL or another appropriate 

international organ can facilitate these sorts of agreements. 

Realists have proposed a partial regulation approach, a 

mix between complete government regulation and the 

China 2009 Contained six times the normal dose 

of glibenclamide (two people died, 

nine people hospitalized) 

2009 Discovered in 40 pharmacies: lacked 

lic of Tanzania sucient active ingredient 

ailand 2008 Smuggled into ailand from an 

unknown source in an unknown 

country 

United States 2007 Contained no active ingredient and 

sold via Internet sites operated outside 

of the USA 

United Kingdom 

United Kingdom 

2007 Detected in the legal supply chain: 

lacked active ingredient 

2006 Detected in the legal supply chain: 

lacked active ingredient 

laissez-faire sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. is 

would combine government with private organizations 

and civic associations in the regulation and create mutual 

cooperation and understanding without infringing on 

the natural relations between competing companies in a 

capitalist society.. 110 

Consumer education campaigns can be seen as equally 

necessary. is measure ranges from carefully placed 

television, newspaper, and magazine ads, to the 

incorporation of counterfeit drug dangers into public health 

curricula. ese eorts will require the cooperation of 

doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, who would 

be encouraged to explain to their patients the imperative 

of taking authentic medications. Consumers would be 

advised to shop online only at licensed pharmacies, and 

to look for seals of approval. Countries may even go as far 

as to promote “community policing,” providing accessible, 

simple, and privacy-protected means for private individuals 

to report examples of websites selling counterfeit 

pharmaceuticals to the relevant authorities. Websites that 

oer prescription drugs for reduced prices or without a 


Counterfeit testing kits such as this have yet to become widely used at hospitals, pharmacies, and health clinics, especially in 

developing countries. (Global Health Connections) 

need for a prescription would then be shut down or avoided 

by future consumers. As an example, Cambodia’s strategy 

of improving the availability of quality-assured drugs and a 

poster and radio campaign undertaken to educate patients 

to distinguish fake tablets have slowed the counterfeit 

antimalarial drug trade. is is an example of a successful 

partnership among government, pharmacists, and the 

lay public that ought to be replicated in other states and 

societies. 111 

QUESTIONS A RESOLUTION MUST ANSWER 

!" How do we reconcile the use of patents in 

the pharmaceutical industry with the rise in 

counterfeiting in recent years? Can and should 

INTERPOL intervene in this debate, and if so, 

how? 

!" What portion of its budget should INTERPOL 

dedicate to the goal of reducing counterfeit 

pharmaceutical trade and production? When 

answering this question, consider and weigh 

INTERPOL’s other stated goals and priorities 

such as drug and human tracking, terrorism, 

environmental crime, and intellectual property 

crimes. 

!" What should be the roles of various actors 

(including governments, regional and 

international bodies, law enforcement 

agencies, non-governmental organizations, 

the pharmaceutical industry, the internet and 

service delivery industry, and the general 

public) in the ght against counterfeit 

medications? How can INTERPOL incorporate 

and include the views and contributions of 

these members in its eorts? 

!" How can technology be integrated into the 

understanding and addressing counterfeiting? 

!" What is an appropriate punishment for those 

found guilty of selling or trading counterfeit 

medications? Is it appropriate for INTERPOL 

to assign a punishment or even a punishment 

range for such crimes? 

KEY ACTORS 

Position & History Of Various Actors 

The WHO is a major stakeholder in the campaign 

against the trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals. As 

early as 1985, WHO adopted the eradication of counterfeit 


drugs to be one of its main priorities. 112 WHO believes that 

stringent regulatory control of medicines and enforcement 

by national medicines regulatory authorities can contribute 

signicantly to prevention and detection of counterfeit 

medicines. It thus provides direct country and regional 

support for strengthening medicine regulation. e agency 

also conducts workshops emphasizing the magnitude of 

the risk and the possible consequences drug counterfeiting 

holds for health systems. Additionally, WHO has conducted 

studies and provided funding to various countries to 

combat the problem. 

e Pharmaceutical Security Institute (PSI) is a non-prot 

corporation formed by several major drug companies to 

collate their fake drug information to cooperate in ghting 

counterfeiting. Based in Vienna, Virginia in the United 

States, the PSI holds the only known comprehensive and 

updated source of fake drug information. e PSI Web 

site (www.psi-inc.org) states: “On a daily basis, many 

individuals unknowingly risk death or serious injury to 

their health by taking counterfeit pharmaceuticals.” 113 But 

its databank, which health workers see as holding key 

information to prevent patients from taking life-threatening 

fakes, is not accessible to WHO, health authorities, 

or the public. Access is restricted even between its 

member companies, which include the 15 largest drug 

manufacturers. Justication for such restriction involves 

protecting members which may be seen to cause the 

counterfeit drug crisis, either by directly manufacturing a 

counterfeit product by accident or explicitly or by having 

lax standards that allow mis-packaged or mis-produced 

items to escape undetected and undeterred. INTERPOL 

should bring in the expertise of PSI when considering 

creating a database in order to avoid replicating costly 

eorts to compile information. Agreements with PSI to 

share information with the public that does not jeopardize 

any company’s privacy or security warrants deliberation and 

discussion on an international level. 

e Permanent Forum on International Pharmaceutical 

Crime (PFIPC) is an international enforcement forum with 

the goal of protecting public health and safety through 

the exchange of information and ideas to foster mutual 

cooperation. 114 e members of PFIPC are professionals 

from 15 member countries worldwide whose goal is to 

enhance the protection of the public health by combating 

pharmaceutical crime. e member countries come from 

four continents and include South Africa, Singapore, 

Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Israel, 

Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, 

Number of drug busts in recent years, by region of the world. (http://neurobonkers.com/?tag=counterfeit-drugs) 


Canada, and the United States. 115 ough cooperative in 

nature, the PFIPC is slow-moving since it performs its 

actions based on consensus, and several countervailing 

political opinions come into play. 

In the United States, the FDA has created a Counterfeit 

Drug Taskforce in response to the rise in reports of 

counterfeiting in pharmaceuticals. It has the stated goal 

of “preventing the introduction of counterfeit drugs, 

facilitating the identication of counterfeit drugs, 

minimizing risk and exposure of consumers to counterfeit 

drugs, and avoiding the addition of unnecessary costs on 

the prescription drug distribution system, or unnecessary 

restrictions to lower-cost sources of drugs.” 116 e FDA does 

not believe that counterfeit drugs are rampant in the United 

States, but it does acknowledge that there has recently 

been a dramatic increase. 117 e Counterfeit Drug Task 

Force identies vulnerabilities in the US drug distribution 

system and develops ways to counteract these aws. Task 

force strategies for combating drug counterfeiting include 

using advanced technology, securing business practices and 

regulatory requirements, creating rapid alert and response 

systems, developing education and public awareness 

programs, and addressing international issues. 118 

POTENTIAL VOTING BLOCS 

In most industrialized countries with eective regulatory 

systems and market control (such as Australia, Canada, 

Japan, New Zealand, most of the European Union, and 

the United States), incidences of counterfeit medicine 

tend to be less than 1% of market value, according to these 

countries’ estimates. 119 is number jumps to an estimated 

8% of bulk drugs in the United States, according to the 

American Pharmacists’ Association. 120 Despite this low 

number, counterfeiting has been on a rise in these nations. 

us, there will be a focus on regulating and shutting 

down various websites selling counterfeit drugs. ese 

countries will be receiving plenty of pressure from large 

pharmaceutical companies based in their states to focus on 

regulation stemming from the public and governments. 

In many African countries and in parts of Asia, Latin 

America, and countries in transition, a much higher 

proportion of up to 50% of medicines may be counterfeit. 

For example, in Cambodia, 60% of 133 drug vendors 

were found to be selling anti-malaria medications 

lacking the active ingredient. irty-eight percent 

of the anti-malarial artesunate in Southeast Asia has 

been documented to be counterfeit. 121 is proportion 

varies signicantly in each country, as well as between 

urban and rural populations. 122 is can be attributed both 

to weaker regulatory systems as well as a larger market 

of chronically ill, uneducated, and impoverished patients 

who are more likely than their educated or wealthier 

counterparts to seek counterfeit medicines, which tend to 

be cheaper. ese countries will tend to focus on the need 

to change overall pharmaceutical prices, which they argue 

are unaordable to their population due to various patent 

laws. Countries such as Brazil and India are particularly 

vocal about this issue; they argue that patent laws make it 

increasingly dicult to produce mass-made generic drugs 

that are just as eective as name-brand drugs, but nearly 

half as expensive. ey blame pharmaceutical companies 

for using the ght against counterfeit pharmaceuticals 

as merely a cover for the squashing of competitors that 

produce generic drugs at low cost. As Maria Nazareth 

Farani Azevedo, Brazil’s ambassador to the WHO, stated 

at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland 

(May 2010): “What we object to is a group of private 

companies, with the help of the WHO secretariat, waging 

war in this organisation against generic medicines.” 123 

Berne Declaration NGO’s head of health projects Patrick 

Durish elaborates: “Emerging and developing countries 

believe there is a readiness to reinforce intellectual property 

laws and the monopolies of the pharmaceutical industry 

under the guise of the ght against counterfeits.” 124 us, 

developing countries will be the ones attempting to pressure 

pharmaceutical companies through INTERPOL rather than 

being inuenced by the companies’ wishes in the interest of 

reducing life-threatening diseases in their country through 

the provision of low-cost generic drugs. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 

For further information about counterfeit 

pharmaceuticals, the rst resource to consider is the 

INTERPOL Pharmaceutical Crime Department, which 

describes INTERPOL’s role and lists several news articles 

relevant to the issue: http://www.interpol.int/Public/ 

PharmaceuticalCrime/Default.asp. 

Further research materials can be found on the websites of 

all the key actors, listed above: 

!" WHO: www.who.int 

!" PSI: www.psi-inc.org 

!" PFIPC: www.ppc.org 

!" FDA: www.fda.gov 

Valuable academic and online journals dealing with health 

issues with free online content include Journal of the 


American Pharmacists Association, Science Daily, Health 

Aairs, and Hopkins Medicine Magazine. Your university 

may also have a subscription to paid online journals such 

as JSTOR. You can inquire at your library to see if you can 

access articles that provide deeper analysis of the intricacies 

of the issue or provide specic examples of successful 

solutions. 

You may also nd it helpful to explore the health and trade 

policy of your state, via its Health Department or a similar 

national organization. If no country information is readily 

available, consider a regional organization’s position; in 

issues of trade, blocs of nations may oen have similar 

views. 

As always, please feel free to contact me at lisawang@ 

college.harvard.edu should you have any additional 

questions. 

P OSI T I ON PAPERS 

All INTERPOL delegates are required to submit position 

papers detailing their country or organization’s stance 

on both topics and proposing several solutions that the 

country or organization would support. Position papers 

serve to introduce the director and other delegates to 

your views and spark debate before committee begins. 

ey also will help you orient your position and allow 

you to arrive at WorldMUN prepared to engage in debate 

immediately. ough position papers are not intended to 

be all-encompassing, they’re a good springboard for your 

interactions in the committee and will allow you to pick out 

fellow delegates who have similar ideas. You certainly do 

not have to feel like you are bound to every word on your 

position paper; your opinion may change over the course of 

the conference, and that’s to be completely expected. 

Generally, each position paper (one per topic) must include: 

a brief statement of the problem and/or its history (with 

particular emphasis on its connection to your delegation); 

a country/organization position and actions on the topic; 

several comprehensive and collaborative solutions that can 

be appropriately addressed in an INTERPOL format; and 

the answers to the following questions: 

TOPIC A: WILDLIFE CRIME 

 

delegation has a particular interest in protecting? Why? 

Propose some solutions to that eect. 

 

been participating? Were they eective? Why or why not? 

 

in place to prevent tracking and prevent further species 

loss? Which should come from INTERPOL? 

TOPIC B: COUNTERFEIT PHARMACEUTICALS 

 

point for counterfeit pharmaceuticals? 

 

conict between patent laws and inaccessible medication in 

developing countries? 

C L O S I NG REMA RKS 

Dear Delegates, 

Congratulations on making it through this study guide! 

I hope you have found it informative, stimulating, and 

comprehensive. To truly facilitate a positive and collaborative 

discussion, however, more research will be necessary 

to verse yourselves in the views and actions of your particular 

organization, as well as to nd out more about the 

complications surrounding Wildlife Crime and Counterfeit 

Pharmaceuticals that you have undoubtedly come across 

in this study guide. ough the following bibliography and 

appendices are a great place to start with your research, I 

encourage you to look beyond to your delegation’s website 

or your university’s resources for further guidance. 

Please do not hesitate to email me at lisawang@college.harvard.edu 

if you have any questions about the research process 

or about either topic in particular. I will try my best to 

answer your questions and point you to the right resources! 

Best of luck in the research process and see you in Vancouver! 

Best Regards, 

Lisa Wang 

Chair, INTERPOL 

WorldMUN 2012 

B IBL I OGRA P H Y 

Topic A: Wildlife Crime 

CITES. “Indicators for Objectives Contained in the CITES 

Strategic Vision, 2008-2013.” Accessed June 20, 2011. http:// 

www.cites.org/eng/news/E-SV-indicators.pdf. 

Coalition Against Wildlife Tracking (CAWT). “Illegal 

Wildlife Trade.” Last modied 2009. Accessed May 16, 2011. 


http://www.cawtglobal.org/wildlife-crime/. 

E/CN.15/2003/8. “Illicit tracking in protected species of 

wild ora and fauna and illicit access to genetic resources: 

Report of the Secretary-General.” Commission on Crime 

Prevention and Criminal Justice. March 4, 2003. 

E/CN.15/2008/20. “Report of the meeting of the Open-ended 

Expert Group on International Cooperation in Preventing 

and Combating Illicit International Tracking in Forest 

Products, including Timber, Wildlife and Other Forest 

Biological Resources, held in Jakarta from 26 to 28 March 

2008.” Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal 

Justice. April 1, 2008. 

Geist, Valerius. “How Markets in Wildlife Meat and Parts, 

and the Sale of Hunting Privileges, Jeopardize Wildlife Conservation.” 

Conservation Biology 2 (1988): 15-26. 

Hendry, Ruth. “Are rats and bees the solution to Africa’s 

bushmeat problem?” Earth Times. Last modied June 13, 

2011. Accessed June 20, 2011. http://www.earthtimes.org/ 

conservation/rats-bees-solution-africa-bushmeat-problem/1015/. 

Hughes, Lee. “Exotic Animal Tracking: Loving em to 

Death.” Blue & Gold. Accessed June 20, 2011. http://www. 

ccbluegold.com/mobile/campus-news/exotic-animal-traf- 

cking-loving-them-to-extinction-1.2351327. 

INTERPOL. “Wildlife Crime.” Last modied January 10, 

2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. http://www.interpol.int/public/environmentalcrime/wildlife/default.asp. 

Leader-Williams, N., and E. J. Milner-Gulland. “Policies for 

the Enforcement of Wildlife Laws: e Balance between 

Detection and Penalties in Luangwa Valley, Zambia.” Conservation 

Biology 7 (1993): 611-617. 

McNeil, Emma. “Tackling Global Wildlife Crime.” Earth 

Times. Last modied November 25, 2010. Accessed May 16, 

2011. http://www.earthtimes.org/nature/tackling-globalwildlife-crime/57/. 

Menon, Vivek. Wildlife Crime: An Enforcement Guide. 

New Delhi, India: Natraj Publishers, 1999. 

Merrell, Brandon, and omas J. Schally. “Illegal Wildlife 

Tracking.” In Up for Debate: U.S. Foreign Policy Options 

towards the Greater Horn of Africa, edited by Danny 

Cantrell and Brandy Brickey, 1-24. La Mirada, CA: Picket 

Fence Memories, 2009. 

Morkel, Devereaux. “Rise in rhino poaching.” Jacaranda 

FM. Last modied May 13, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. 

http://www.jacarandafm.com/kagiso/content/en/jacaranda/ 

jacaranda-news?oid=1188402&sn=Detail&pid=6182&Risein-rhino-poaching. 

“Partnership meets to launch wildlife strategy for the coming 

year.” Montrose Review. Last modied April 23, 2010. 

Accessed May 16, 2011. http://www.montrosereview.co.uk/ 

news/local-headlines/partnership_meets_to_launch_wildlife_strategy_for_the_coming_year_1_1582767. 

Rees, Paul A. Urban Environments and Wildlife Law: A 

Manual for Sustainable Development. Oxford, UK: Blackwell 

Science Ltd., 2002. 

Robinson, Rob. “Interpol (Wildlife Crime Subgroup) Conference, 

Auckland; speech.” New Zealand Police. Last modi- 

ed October 14, 2003. Accessed June 20, 2011. http://www. 

police.govt.nz/news/release/1332.html. 

Sellar, John. “How Serious is Wildlife Crime?” Freedom 

from Fear Magazine. Last modied May 

16, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. http://www. 

freedomfromfearmagazine.org/index.php?option=com_ 

content&view=article&id=230:how-serious-is-wildlifecrime&catid=49:issue-6&Itemid=186. 

Shover, Neal, and Aaron S. Routhe. “Environmental Crime.” 

Crime and Justice 32 (2005): 321-371. 

Sinha, Vipasha. “Need for a new system.” Deccan Chronicle. 

Last modied May 16, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. http:// 

www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/chennai/need-newsystem-124. 

Skonho, Anders, and Jan Tore Solstad. “e Political 

Economy of Wildlife Exploitation.” Land Economics 74 

(1998): 16-31. 

“Statement on Wildlife Crime Allegations.” BBC News. Last 

modied May 9, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. http://www. 

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13337283. 

TRAFFIC. “Wildlife trade: What is it?” Last modied 2008. 

Accessed June 20, 2011. http://www.trac.org/trade/. 


United Nations Environmental Programme. “African Task 

Force on Wildlife Crime.” Ed. Ali B. Ali-Dinar. Last modi- 

ed March 4, 1994. Accessed May 16, 2011. http://www. 

africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/African_Task_15615.html. 

Wildlife Extra. “Multinational operation against wildlife 

crime nets 500 kilos of ivory In East Africa.” Accessed June 

20, 2011. http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/ivoryseizure938.html#cr. 

World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “Combating the trade in 

endangered species.” Accessed June 20, 2011. http://wwf. 

panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/conservation/species_programme/wildlife_trade/. 

Topic 2: Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals 

Bishikwabo, Kizito Nsarhaza. “e Informal Pharmaceuticals 

Market in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Development 

in Practice 8 (1998): 241-5. 

Cockburn, Robert, et al. “e Global reat of Counterfeit 

Drugs: Why Industry and Governments Must Communicate 

the Dangers.” PLoS Medicine 2 (2005): 302-308. Accessed 

May 16, 2011. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020100. 

“Combating Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals from China.” 

Science Daily. Last modied July 17, 2007. Accessed 

May 16, 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070716132436.htm. 

“Counterfeit drugs costing lives, UN agency warns.” Agence 

France Presse. Last modied May 13, 2011. Accessed May 

16, 2011. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ 

ALeqM5hl9_MwbXEpWqsGjClOMoLw7d16CA?docId=C 

NG.9e1c62c2ce16e882a63d9be458862daf.1b1. 

“Counterfeiting threat looms over drug industry.” CBS 

News. Last modied May 11, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/11/earlyshow/ 

contributors/susankoeppen/main20061836.shtml. 

Darnton, Kyra, et al. “e dicult ght against counterfeit 

drugs: Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates fake medications on his 

rst assignment for “60 Minutes”.” CBS News. Last modied 

March 10, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/10/60minutes/main20040693. 

shtml. 

Feno, Roy S., and Jeremy M. Wilson. “Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals: 

Examining the Multi-dimensional Risk to 

African Nations.” In Crime and Terrorism Risk, edited by 

Leslie W. Kennedy and Edmund F. McGarrell, 227-241. New 

York: Routledge, 2011. 

Fulda, omas R., and Albert I. Wertheimer, eds. Handbook 

of Pharmaceutical Public Policy. Binghamton, NY: e 

Haworth Press, Inc., 2007. 

Grossman, Gene M., and Carl Shapiro. “Counterfeit Product 

Trade.” e American Economic Review 78 (1988): 

59-75. 

Harper, Jonathan. Counterfeit Medicines: Survey Report. 

Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe Publishing, 2006. 

Lybecker, Kristina M. “Rx Roulette: Combatting Counterfeit 

Pharmaceuticals in Developing Nations.” Management and 

Decision Economics 28 (2007): 509-520. 

Menkes, David B. “Hazardous Drugs in Developing Countries: 

e Market May Be Healthier than the People.” British 

Medical Journal 315 (1997): 1557-1558. 

Newton, Paul N., et al. “Counterfeit Anti-infective Drugs.” 

e Lancet Infectious Diseases 6 (2006): 602-613. Accessed 

May 16, 2011. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(06)70581-3. 

Pzer. “Counterfeiting & Importation.” Accessed May 16, 

2011. http://www.pzer.com/products/counterfeit_and_importation/counterfeit_importation.jsp. 

Sampson, Peter J. “Closter couple plead guilty to illegally 

distributing pharmaceuticals.” e Record. Last modied 

May 16, 2011. Accessed May 16, 2011. http://www.northjersey.com/news/Closter_couple_pleads_guilty_to_illegally_ 

distributing_pharmaceuticals.html. 

Veronin, Michael A., and Bi-Botti C. Youan. “Magic Bullet 

Gone Astray: Medications and the Internet.” Science 305 

(2004): 481. 

Wertheimer, Albert I., et al. “Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals: 

Current Status and Future Projects.” Journal of the American 

Pharmacists Association 43 (2003). http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/465906. 

World Health Organization. “Medicines: Counterfeit Medicines.” 

Last modied January 2010. Accessed May 16, 2011. 


http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs275/en/index. 

html. 

E N D N O T E S 

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/'&$)3+$?"/'&0+1+")$'/$E,.#.,/+$C!-*N$93+$U!.!"0+$U+)-++"$ 

g+)+0),'"$!"#$A+"!.),+*$,"$C4!"6-!$^!..+!),'"*$?";,&'"1+")!.$A&'6&!11+$Qi>?AR7$ 

DP/&,0!"$9!*5$W'&0+$'"$E,.#.,/+$F&,1+7G$+#,)+#$2';+12+&$K]7$KJIJ7$!00+**+#$L!

37 $FPE98 

38 $C+!#+&TE,..,!1*$MI]8 

39 $^,%!*3!$V,"3!7$D>++#$/'&$!$"+-$*

70 $n

115 Ibid8 

116 $E+&)3+,1+&8 

117 Ibid8 

118 Ibid8 

119 Ibid8 

120 Ibid8 

121 $E'&.#$Y+!.)3$B&6!",`!),'"8 

122 Ibid8 

123 $DF'4")+&/+,)$#&46*oG 

124 Ibid8

INTERPOL - World Model United Nations

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