Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco’s Travels to Tokyo for G7 and ASEAN Justice Ministers Meetings

In remarks at the ASEAN Interface on July 7, the Deputy AG emphasized the critical importance of strong international partnerships to combating intensifying global threats from cybercrime and transnational organized crime, particularly narcotics trafficking. She also pointed to the Disruptive Technology Strike Force she launched earlier this year, encouraging her G7 counterparts to work together to deny repressive regimes the technology they abuse and exploit to monitor, harass, and intimidate.

“Our adversaries are not content with the status quo — they are increasingly creative, brazen, and malicious in their efforts to weaken democracies, to sow discord, and to spread corruption across the globe. Only by defending the rule of law, protecting civil liberties, and holding fast to the values that underpin our countries can we defeat these autocratic regimes — and we can and must do these things together.”

-Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco

While in Tokyo, the Deputy AG held a number of bilateral meetings, including with Justice Ministers and other counterparts from the United Kingdom, the Philippines, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and Canada, as well as with the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

In all of these discussions, the Deputy AG emphasized the importance of continuing to invest in international partnerships, which are key to dismantling deadly narcotics trafficking networks, disrupting cybercrime and threats like ransomware, and preventing the misuse of critical technologies by repressive regimes to undermine democracies.

Before leaving Tokyo, the Deputy AG visited the American Embassy for a briefing with U.S. officials on their work in-country and to thank them for their dedicated public service.