Addressing high-level panels at the 15th UN Crime Congress in Abu Dhabi, Dr. Hamad Saif Al Shamsi urges swift cross-border data sharing to combat organised financial fraud and cautions against replacing judicial discretion with AI.
ABU DHABI — September 28, 2026 : A legal system’s ultimate success depends on whether ordinary citizens can easily exercise their rights rather than how those rights are documented on paper, UAE Attorney-General Counsellor Dr. Hamad Saif Al Shamsi told international delegates at the 15th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
Speaking during two high-level thematic sessions at ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi, Al Shamsi addressed the dual challenges facing modern judiciaries: modernising criminal justice systems through technology without removing human accountability, and combating the rapid proliferation of transnational financial fraud.
The public remains the ultimate benchmark for measuring institutional fairness, Al Shamsi said during a session focused on global access to justice. While the United Arab Emirates has overhauled court procedures to cut bureaucratic friction and accelerate service delivery, legal safeguards must remain uncompromised. Access, he noted, requires clear frameworks that account for linguistic diversity, age, physical disabilities, and the vulnerability of crime victims.
Turning to the growing use of automated technology in judicial administration, Al Shamsi struck a cautionary tone on artificial intelligence. Although predictive tools and automated workflows can expedite legal research and pattern identification, he warned that technological adoption has strict boundaries.
“AI cannot replace legal judgement or human responsibility for decisions,” Al Shamsi told the gathering, underscoring that accountability must remain grounded in human judicial discretion.
The remarks come amid broader negotiations at the triennial United Nations summit, which opened over the weekend under the umbrella of the newly adopted Abu Dhabi Declaration. The framework commits member nations to tackling sophisticated cross-border networks exploiting emerging digital tools, shell structures, and digital currencies.
During a second ministerial dialogue addressing organised scam networks, Al Shamsi stressed that transnational fraud rings move illicit capital within minutes, requiring prosecutors and investigators worldwide to match that velocity.
“In organised fraud cases, the difference between recovering a victim’s money and losing it may lie in how quickly information is transmitted and translated into action,” he said.
Cross-border asset recovery currently stumbles when requests move through slow bureaucratic channels, Al Shamsi said, calling on member states to establish direct, secure communication pathways between counterpart judicial authorities. He advocated for deeper reliance on existing international task forces, streamlined mutual legal assistance treaties, and accelerated extradition mechanisms to freeze illicit funds before assets vanish into unregulated financial channels.
Such cross-border cooperation, he added, must operate strictly within domestic statutes and multilateral treaties while maintaining data privacy safeguards.
The six-day UN Crime Congress, which runs through October 1, brings together delegations from nearly 100 member states, including interior ministers, prosecutors general, and international legal scholars. UAE Public Prosecution delegates are scheduled to participate in technical working groups throughout the remainder of the week to discuss cross-jurisdictional evidence sharing and the regulation of virtual assets in criminal proceedings.
