In September 2022, the IIJ, together with the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) “REMVE” Toolkit Initiative Leads, the United States and Norway, held a side event on Using the Full Range of Criminal Justice Tools to Counter Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism (REMVE) on the margins of the 77th session of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The event took place with the generous support of the Government of the United States.
The primary objectives of the side event were (1) to highlight the full range of criminal justice tools that governments are using, including in coordination with civil society and community actors, to prevent and counter REMVE threats; (2) to examine how governments are cooperating transnationally in this area; (3) to identify tools that can enhance understanding of REMVE and responses to it; and (4) to highlight the IIJ’s and GCTF’s ongoing activities.
At this side event, Mr. Ilkka Salmi, the European Union Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, and Dr. Pauline Moore, a Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation and Professor of Policy Analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School who is a noted expert on REMVE, provided an assessment of how REMVE actors currently threaten societies and governments worldwide. Senior officials from the U.S. and Norway highlighted how governments are cooperating transnationally to address REMVE threats, including by supporting the GCTF’s development of the REMVE Toolkit and the IIJ’s ongoing work to put the IIJ Criminal Justice Practitioner’s Guide for Addressing REMVE into practice. Several senior policy officials, practitioners, and civil society representatives then used concrete examples to discuss recent steps that governments have taken, including in close coordination with non-governmental actors, to prevent REMVE threats from emerging and to counter them when they do.
Participants and speakers alike commended the IIJ for putting together such a strong lineup of speakers on this important topic and for featuring particularly substantive and interesting presentations and for generating a great deal of engagement from the participants.
The IIJ will continue to put the IIJ REMVE Guide into practice through a series of Criminal Justice Practitioner’s Roundtables, most immediately with a Roundtable on Addressing Vulnerabilities to REMVE / ERWT (Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism) Radicalisation which will be held in London in October 2022.
For more information on this side event, please contact the IIJ at info@theiij.org.