Legal Innovation Conference 2024
Legal Innovation Conference 2024, Agenda 2030 and Criminal Justice: Sustainable Development Goals
Once again this year, Attorney Federica Liparoti spoke at the Legal Innovation Conference, now in its fourth edition. This is a free live streaming event, organised and promoted by Avvocato 360 | Innovation for Lawyers on 19, 20 and 21 November 2024. The event was dedicated to the theme ‘The Lawyer of the Future. Today’ and consisted of three days coordinated by Dr. Stefano Montimoregi:
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The evolution of the legal professions: adaptation and leadership in a changing legal landscape.
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Emerging challenges and new frontiers of legal practice.
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Technology and law: how artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of the legal professions.


Liparoti.legal law firm is a sponsor of the event. In her exposition, Mrs. Liparoti analysed the link between the goals of Agenda 2030 and the innovations in Criminal Justice, with a speech entitled ‘Agenda 2030 and Criminal Justice: Sustainable Development Goals’.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an action programme for people, planet and prosperity signed in September 2015 by the governments of the 193 UN member states. It incorporates 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into a broader programme of 169 targets, which each member country, including Italy, commits to achieve by 2030.
By implementing the 2030 Agenda, governments aim to promote a more just, peaceful and inclusive society through justice system reforms. Some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda directly related to criminal justice include:
1. Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
This goal aims to:
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Promote universal access to justice: ensure that all people, including vulnerable people, have access to a fair justice system.
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Reduce corruption and malpractices: the 2030 Agenda pushes for the creation of institutions that are accountable, transparent and capable of reducing abuses of power.
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Reduce crime and violence: strengthen policies to prevent and tackle crime, particularly organised crime, human trafficking and terrorism.
2. Criminal Justice Reforms
Agenda 2030 promotes the adoption of alternative measures to imprisonment to reduce prison overcrowding, such as home detention, rehabilitation programmes and restorative justice. The idea is to promote a system that is not only limited to punishment, but that favours social reintegration and the reduction of reoffending.
3. Protection of Human Rights
The 2030 Agenda pays special attention to human rights within the penal system, emphasising the need to:
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Ensure respect for the rights of prisoners, including humane detention conditions.
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Ensure fair trials, particularly for the economically disadvantaged.
4. Inclusion of Victims of Crime
Another point of contact is the promotion of support policies for victims of violent crimes, especially women and children, who are often subjected to violence and abuse. This includes legal, medical and psychological assistance, consistent with Goal 5, which concerns gender equality and protection against violence.
5. Combating transnational forms of organized crime
The 2030 Agenda recognizes the importance of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and its Protocols in combating both existing and emerging forms of transnational organized crime. the most significant issues include:
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Human trafficking, which is considered under three objectives of the Agenda (8.7, 5.2 and 16.2), affecting most victims, women and children.
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Smuggling of migrants, for which the EU in accordance with Agenda 2030 supports the principles and standards enshrined in the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air and promotes the ratification of the Protocol and the adoption of national legislation in line with it.
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Organised crime at sea, for which the EU n accordance with Agenda 2030 adopted a revised Action Plan on Maritime Security, which promotes a holistic perspective on maritime security, encompassing terrorism and cyber, hybrid, chemical, environmental and other threats in the maritime domain.
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Money laundering: the EU adopted an improved legal framework against money laundering, harmonising the definition of offences and sanctions related to money laundering, including the proceeds of cybercrime, and removing obstacles to cross-border police and judicial cooperation.
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Implementation of a comprehensive counter-narcotics trafficking policy to promote security, development and human rights, such as facilitating extradition and international or European arrest warrant procedures.
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Cybercrime: Adoption and strengthening of specific procedural powers to secure electronic evidence and develop criminal justice capacities to apply procedural powers in practice.
Summary
The relationship between the 2030 Agenda and criminal justice is about building a criminal justice system that is not only more effective and transparent, but also more fair, humane and oriented towards crime prevention and the protection of human rights.

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