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Abstract. Introduction. The meanings of “crime”, “transnational crime” and “international crime”: usage in this book and why it. Matters to the commission. Establishment, history and nature of the U.N. crime commission. Substantive work and mandates of the commission. Major functions: what the commission actually does. I. Substantive functions. 1. Issue identification and definition. 2. Policy-making. 3. Information-sharing. 4. The development of expertise and transfer of knowledge. 5. The development of experts. 6. Resource mobilization. 7. Developing technical assistance. 8. Treaty and international law functions. II. Political and procedural functions. 1. Building and managing consensus. 2. Integrating and moderating partisan political views on crime. 3. Establishing legitimacy. 4. Merging political, diplomatic and substantive perspectives. 5. Institutional coordination. 6. Priority setting. 7. Strategic planning (work of the Crime Programme and Secretariat). 8. Strategic planning (work of the Crime Commission itself). 9. Oversight of the Secretariat by Member States. Current issues, challenges and obstacles to performing basic functions. I. Issues relating to the capacity and function of the Commission itself. 1. Politicisation of the Commission. 2. Regional groups and equitable geographical representation. 3. Difficulties predicting subject matter and preparing for sessions in advance. 4. Limited capacity to conduct and participate effectively in substantive deliberations. 5. Insufficient duration of the annual sessions. 6. Limited capacity to produce supporting documentation of Commission inputs and outputs. 7. Participation of representatives of other intergovernmental and non-governmental bodies, representatives of the private sector and individual. II. Issues related to the contribution and management of financial resources. 1. The demand for technical assistance and Secretariat services exceeds the supply of expertise and resources. 2. Whether donors or the Commission set priorities, and unfunded mandates. 3. Imbalance between resources earmarked for specific projects and resources for general-purpose, core and programme-support functions. Possible reforms. 1. Clearer relationships between substantive expert functions and diplomatic functions. 2. Greater involvement of substance experts, including independent experts. 3. Clearer understanding of the roles of the quinquennial Crime Congresses and their relationships to the Commission. 4. Reduce the repetitive or redundant consideration of the same issues. 5. Thematic focus, thematic discussions and the strategic planning of issues. 6. Better use of existing resources: more use of the Institutes of the Programme Network. 7. Increase capacity by increasing the duration of annual sessions. 8. Budgetary reform options. 9. Establish criteria and a practice governing the choice of body to which resolutions of the Commission should be addressed. 10. Greater focus on research. 11. Information gathering and “questionnaire fatigue”. 12. Limiting the scope of issues that can be dealt with intersessionally. 13. The advance submission and release of documents. 14. The size of documents before the Commission. 15. Can the volume of documentation be reduced? 16. Better dissemination of Commission documents and other materials produced by the Secretariat. Conclusion. Bibliography.