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Critical Reflections on Organised Crime, Drug Trafficking and Human Security in the Twenty-First Century Hypercompetitive and Fast-Paced World

Oluwole Bayonle OGUNDELE

Abstract

This paper provides an insight to the world of transnational organised crime and drug trafficking. It examines transnational organised crime groups, their activities and the efforts made to stop them worldwide. However, for developing-world states, organised crime poses a far greater threat, undermining the rule of law and their monopoly on violence. While the impact of organised crime varies, it is equally important to consider the levels at which threats have an impact. As a result, this paper investigates how organised crime threatens security at the global, national, and individual levels (human security). It is primarily concerned with drug trafficking, which remains the most significant and lucrative of all transnational activities; it is the primary (though not the only) source of illicit wealth and power in many societies; and it is most closely associated with violence and corruption. This paper also examines human trafficking, which is a direct threat to human security. Other transnational criminal activities, as well as criminal organisations that concentrate power and use corruption and violence to protect themselves and their activities, have an impact on security. The final section of this paper briefly introduces the depth and breadth of the response to transnational organised crime.

Keywords

Criminal OrganisationsDrug TraffickingHuman SecurityTransnational Organised

References

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