UN plays crucial role in curbing cross-border threats: Ban

UNITED NATIONS, April 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday stressed the need for effective strategies to help states monitor, control and secure their borders against the illicit flows of materials and goods, as well as people, highlighting how the United Nations is playing a crucial role in this area.

"Preventing illicit flows is beneficial to countries, communities and individuals. It is important for security, development and human rights," the secretary-general told the Security Council as it met to discuss improving UN capacity to assist states to counter illicit flows.

The 15-nation UN body met on Wednesday in an open debate on the threats to international peace and security: improving UN capacity to assist states to counter illicit flows.

Ban noted that, across the globe, insecure borders enable the trafficking of drugs, weapons, contraband, terrorist funding, materials related to weapons of mass destruction, conflict minerals, wildlife and people.

"Such illicit flows undermine state sovereignty. They destroy communities and individual lives. They are threats to peace and security and are rightly the focus of this council's close attention," he told the meeting, convened at the initiative of the United States, which holds the council's rotating presidency for this month.

"Countering them means action on many fronts," said Ban. " Strengthening border security is crucial."

Member states are obliged under international law to secure their borders against illicit flows, he said. However, "fragile and vulnerable" countries -- some of them devastated by war, others struggling to transform themselves -- often lack the capacity to overcome the conditions that allow these crimes to flourish.

"The United Nations is thus hard at work helping many states to build that capacity," he said.

In Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Project AIRCOP is designed to strengthen controls at international airports. The sea equivalent is the Global Container Control Program.