It was perhaps no accident that the un’s conference on organised crime launching the new Convention took place in the Mediterranean city of Palermo, the centre of traditional Mafiosi networks that the new transnationalism has begun to replace in less than a decade. The Mediterranean region may not be the only source of this new set of threats to the individual and collective authority of governments, but Italy features large as one of the routes through which organised traffickers of drugs, money and people move.
A joint initiative in February by Italian Prime Minister Guiliano Amato and his British counterpart Tony Blair to stem the flow of illegal migrants, especially from the Balkans, was a reminder of the political force of the issue.
