Recommendations on legal assistance in cases of international terrorism help in the fight against this evil

At the beginning of the 21st century, the threats of international terrorism and cross-border crime have grown exponentially, affecting most nations of the world, while an unprecedented increase in the activity of international terrorist organizations and criminal networks has led to a spike in cross-border crimes.
Integration of states, including within the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the commonality of potential threats make it necessary to rapidly develop various forms of interaction and coordination of joint actions by law enforcement agencies of the CSTO Member States to protect the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of citizens, as well as to address urgent challenges and threats to national and international security at the international level.
In the context of criminal prosecution, obtaining evidence from other countries and ensuring that the necessary investigative procedures can be carried out on their territory in such a way that they can be used in the national criminal proceedings of the requesting state is crucial for countering terrorism and cross-border organized crime.
Therefore, the effectiveness of such form of cooperation as legal assistance in criminal cases depends to a large extent on the consistency of legal formalities that can often differ significantly from state to state at the national regulatory level.
As of 2017, a number of normative legal documents regulating issues of counterterrorism and cross-border crime were available in the legal space of the CSTO Member States and were successfully used in cooperation.
However, these documents left considerable room for improvement.
The Recommendations on the Approximation of the Legislation of the CSTO Member States on International Legal Assistance in Criminal Cases to Counter Terrorism and Cross-Border Crime were developed by experts of Research Centre of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation under item 23 of the 2016–2020 CSTO PA Action Plan on Approximation and Harmonization of National Legislation of the CSTO Member States and adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization on October 13, 2017. They are intended to promote the creation of the necessary legal conditions for improving the effectiveness of international legal assistance in criminal cases by the CSTO Member States to counter terrorism and cross-border crime and to ensure the implementation of generally recognized relevant principles and norms of international law and treaties in the legislation of the CSTO States.
The developed Recommendations fully complied with the provisions of the model legislative acts and recommendations in the sphere of countering terrorism and cross-border crime, adopted by the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS Member Nations and the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, as well as the fundamental international instruments and treaties to which the CSTO Member States are parties.