It was a real pleasure to welcome @BMeinl, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria 🇦🇹, @claudiabauer_at, Minister for the EU, Integration and Family, and @jleichtfried, State Secretary at the Ministry of Interior, to the Vienna International Centre to discuss Austria’s priorities as an incoming @UN Security Council member for 2027–2028. The UN family in Vienna brings a wealth of expertise on today’s security challenges. We discussed how to connect this expertise with the Council’s central responsibility of maintaining international peace and security, and to build on Austria’s strong commitment to multilateralism. By bringing Austria’s leadership together with @UNODC’s expertise and work on the ground, we can strengthen international efforts to tackle transnational organized crime and other evolving threats to peace and security. I look forward to working together to advance this agenda and to deliver greater security for people and communities around the world.

Africa is affected by a multitude of complex, dynamic migrant smuggling routes that connect countries across the continent and that extend to Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and the Americas. From the Mediterranean to the Eastern and Southern routes within Africa, migrants often face violence, exploitation, and the risk of trafficking; many do not survive. Today at #UNTOC2026, I highlighted the need to strengthen cooperation across jurisdictions, close the gaps that criminals exploit, invest in data, protect migrants, and address the conditions that make smuggling possible. This is an important opportunity to ensure that migration is addressed in a way that protects people, upholds human dignity, and tackles the criminal networks that prey on the vulnerable. Very grateful to South Africa for convening this event and for placing migration as one of its key priorities. @UNODC stands ready to deepen our partnership in supporting efforts that address this challenge.

Organized crime thrives where it goes unseen, and much of the harm it causes remains hidden and poorly understood. Research changes that. It gives us the evidence to see and understand emerging threats, and to separate perception from reality. At #UNTOC2026, we launched @UNODC’s latest research on organized crime trends, providing our most comprehensive picture yet of the threat landscape that brings together evidence, analysis, and policy insight from across the organization to inform our response in the years to come.

Today, the 13th session of the Conference of Parties to the @UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime #UNTOC2026 opened in Vienna. I had the honour of addressing this convening that brings together more than 2,000 participants, drawn from 130 Member States, to address a defining challenge of our time. Transnational organized crime is no longer a threat hidden away in the shadows of the criminal underworld; it has become part of our everyday lives, impacting individual lives and affecting our communities, our economies and all nations. This week, I urge us to carry forward the spirit and vision that birthed the Palermo Convention 26 years ago, and its aspiration for a world where criminals cannot hide from the law, where justice can travel across jurisdictions, and where humanity is safer from crime and exploitation. I look forward to the Conference’s outcomes that will give fresh impetus to the UNTOC and its additional protocols, and that enrich all our efforts to secure and protect people, communities and the world from the convergence of transnational organized crime.