Previous     Next            Index     Image Index     Year Selection
 White paper on crime 2004 Part2/Chapter6/Section1/3. 

3. Other international conferences

International efforts on criminal justice have also been made in other international conferences.For example,the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions was adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD)in1997.In Japan in order to domestically implement it,the Unfair Competition Prevention Law(Law No.47of1993)was amended to additionally criminalize the act of providing unlawful profit to a foreign public officer etc.and the Convention came into force in1999.
  Furthermore,due to the growing awareness of the necessity to develop international instruments with legally binding force in order to take effective action against cybercrimes committed across national borders,the Council of Europe established an expert group on crimes committed in cyberspace and started preparing a draft of convention in1997.In2001,the Convention on Cybercrime was adopted by the Council.Japan signed it in2001,and the conclusion was approved by the Diet in April2004.The Convention is the world's first comprehensive convention on measures against hi-tech crimes,and provides as follows:(1)the Member States shall be required to criminalize certain acts including illegal access to computer systems,illegal interception of computer data,production of computer viruses for the purpose of committing offenses,and distribution of child pornography through computer systems;(2)the Convention shall broadly apply to any offenses committed by means of a computer s ystem in addition to the specific acts mentioned above,and the Member States shall be required to develop procedures for search and seizure of computer data as evidence in electronic form and enable investigative measures such as orders for preservation of data;(3)international cooperation shall be developed in relation to international assistance in investigation and extradition.
  With respect to the" Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons "that was adopted by the Council of Europe in1983with the aim of establishing a system for transferring sentenced foreign nationals to their home countries to serve their sentences there,the Law on International Transfer of Sentenced Persons(Law No.66of2002)was enacted in2002in Japan.Furthermore,having obtained the approval of the Diet,Japan deposited an instrument of accession to conclude the Convention in February2003.The Convention,along with the said law,came into force in Japan in June2003.Under this law,one British sentenced person was sent back to England on May12,2004.Furthermore,Japan launched unofficial approaches to China with regard to China's accession to the Convention and the conclusion of international agreements between Japan and China concerning the transfer of sentenced persons,in order to bring about the transfer of an increasing number of Chinese sentenced persons ba ck to China(see Part5,Chapter3,Section3-5 ).