A Changing NATO

Over a week ago, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, delivered a speech at the University of Oslo outlining a vision for a “new” NATO.^[1] Though the news is over a week old, it bears mentioning because the vision of a transformed NATO has very stark implications for transnational criminal prosecutions.

Acknowledging that the use of the word “new” can evoke “parallels to washing powder or soft drinks—things that are labeled ‘new’ almost every year—and yet … is still the same old stuff,” he maintains that the use of the term is both legitimate and appropriate^[2] NATO, he says, has undergone a massive transformation of its security outlook and that transformation is still ongoing.^[3]

He lists five dimensions in which change is occurring:

• The first dimension has to do with the way we view security challenges today, and how we use NATO to address them.
• The second relates to how we prepare ourselves militarily, how we need to change heavy metal armies into much more agile forces.
• A third dimension is NATO’s evolving relationship with other major institutions, notably the European Union and the United Nations.
• A fourth dimension is the need to look at nations and regions that used to be well beyond our radar screens.
• And finally, I want to say a few words about the need to reinforce NATO’s role as a political forum, in addition to its role as a military instrument.^[4]

At first blush, these may seem to have little relation to transnational crimes, but what Mr. Scheffer categorizes as security threats do relate to such activity, and the notion that NATO may be casting an eye toward countries beyond its “radar screens” suggests an expansion of its “jurisdiction.”

Noting that the post-Cold War world no longer has a “static security environment,” Mr. Scheffer states that the world faces “a whole range” of new threats: “a lethal breed of terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, failed states spreading instability, and criminal networks trafficking in people, drugs and weapons.”^[5] While Mr. Scheffer maintains that NATO will not turn into “some sort of globocop—ready to deal with emergencies all over the world,” it is this last category that is most remarkable. Heretofore, transnational crimes have been seen largely as crimes which are transborder in nature but do not threaten global stability—unlike international crimes.^[6] All 26 allies of NATO look at the organization “as a very flexible instrument” that can be used “wherever … common security interests demand it,”^[7] and if NATO is willing to elevate trafficking crimes to the level of being a threat to global security, there is a greater likelihood of countries being able to prosecute such crimes wherever they may occur under the universality principle of extraterritorial jurisdiction.

The other striking aspect of the “new” NATO is its political transformation. Whereas NATO was originally envisioned as a mutual defense pact against the possibility of Soviet intrusion into Western Europe, Mr. Scheffer now envisions a NATO which consults on wide range of political topics, such as failed states and energy security.^[8]

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[1] Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Speech: A New NATO, NATO.int, Mar. 3, 2006.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] See, e.g., Philip Reichl, Introduction, in Handbook of Transnational Crime and Justice xiv (Philip Reichl ed., 2005).
[7] Scheffer, supra note 1.
[8] Id.