Pino Arlacchi
Giuseppe "Pino" Arlacchi, is an Italian sociologist and is well known worldwide for his studies and essays about the Mafia. He represents the 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 United Nations Drug Control Programme, 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.From 2009 to 2014 he was a Member of the European Parliament for Southern Italy: initially with the Italy of Values, then with the Democratic Party.
In 2010 he was rapporteur for the European Parliament report A new strategy for Afghanistan which flagged the risks related to very high levels of corruption in the management of international aid funds within the context of the war in Afghanistan to the increase of opium production.
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".A review of the Arlacchi plan has been carried out in March 2009 by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
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.
Arlacchi's management style at the UN faced significant internal criticism and attracted media attention on multiple occasions due to public expressions of concern about his office's activities. Reports highlighted grave concerns regarding the integrity of certain dealings, suggesting that these issues might have occurred with Arlacchi's knowledge of the wrongdoings.
Azerbaijan election controversy
As Head of the European Parliament's monitoring team, Pino Arlacchi certified that the elections in Azerbaijan on 9 October 2013 were "free, fair and transparent". Observers from the OSCE / ODIHR, led by Italian politician Tana de Zulueta, spoke of restrictions on freedom of speech during elections.On October 11, the representative of the European Union, Catherine Ashton and European Commissioner Stefan Fule, ignored the assessment of the European Parliament, including in its statement the results of the ODIHR. It later emerged that a number of EU representatives traveled to Azerbaijan unofficially and on the dime of Azerbaijani organizations, which was regarded by European Voice as "stupidity or corruption", these trips were labeled "electoral tourism".
Arlacchi dismissed the criticism as uncivilized and fictitious and replied that his assessment of the Azerbaijani presidential elections was not personal but reflected that of sixty-five other parliamentarians belonging to three different delegations, and of over one thousand observers from another 46 delegations present on site and from all over the world.