Pino Arlacchi


Giuseppe Arlacchi, also known as Pino, is an Italian sociologist and is well known worldwide for his studies and essays about the Mafia. Currently he represents the Italian Democratic Party and is a member of the Socialists and Democrats parliamentary group since 2010.
On 1 September 1997 he was appointed Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna and Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, with the rank of Under-Secretary-General. Currently, he is a full professor of sociology at the University of Sassari.

Biography

He was born in Gioia Tauro, Calabria. In the early 1990s he was involved in the foundation of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, a law-enforcement agency specially entrusted with fighting organized crime.
Later on he became president of IASOC. Finally, he was appointed honorary president of the Giovanni Falcone foundation, named after noted magistrate Giovanni Falcone, who was also a close friend of his.

Academic career

He has been associate professor of applied sociology at the University of Calabria and at the University of Florence. Moreover, he was visiting professor at the Columbia University of New York City, USA. Later on he got the full professor position at the University of Sassari, where he is currently professor of sociology in the political science faculty.

Political career

In 1994-1996 he was a member of the lower chamber of the Italian parliament and, between 1996–1997, of the Senate. During this period, he was appointed vice-president of the Antimafia Commission, a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament to which he had already collaborated as consultant between 1984 and 1986.
Since 2009 he is a Member of the European Parliament for Southern Italy: initially with the Italy of Values, then with the Democratic Party.

United Nations activities

As soon as he was appointed director of UNDCP he started a worldwide campaign against drugs, the so-called "A Drug Free World".
The key point of such proposal was the elimination of all opium and cocaine plantations by the end of 2008, by means of the development of alternative plantations. Such a proposal had been proposed by Arlacchi immediately after his installation at the UN office and it had been unanimously approved by the UN general assembly in June 1998.
Since that time, the production of narcotic noticeably decreased, in particular in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the new war conducted by the US against the Taliban regime interrupted the program started by Arlacchi some years before. After the beginning of the war, the production of opium restarted.
A review of the Arlacchi plan has been carried out in March 2009 by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The Political Declaration approved at the end of the review process acknowledged significant progresses and reconfirmed the whole strategy for another 10 years, until 2019.
The most important result achieved by Arlacchi during his activity at the UN was the promotion of a UN convention against all the forms of organized criminality, that has been held in Palermo in 2000. The document of this convention came into effect in 2003.