The UAE Ministry of Justice has revealed that its new digital platform for managing international judicial cooperation requests has reduced processing time for certain procedures from up to seven days to just five minutes, disclosed at the 15th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Abu Dhabi.
Abdullah Sultan bin Awad Al Nuaimi, Minister of Justice of the UAE, said the International Cooperation Assistance System, known as Icas, has also reduced staff effort by approximately 80 per cent and delivered improvements of up to 90 per cent in selected procedures since its launch in January 2026.
“Crime today has no borders. Criminals, assets, money and evidence can move across several jurisdictions, which means that no country can fight transnational crime in isolation,” Al Nuaimi said. He added that the UAE’s objective is to ensure judicial cooperation enables the proceeds of crime to be traced, frozen, seized and recovered through sound legal procedures that uphold the rule of law.
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The system digitises all paper-based transactions and condenses 141 administrative procedures into four standardised steps: request submission, verification, committee referral and electronic payment. It also cut the number of escalation steps from eight to three, with automatic referrals, electronic voting and decision archiving built into the platform.
The efficiency gains have translated into faster results on the ground. The UAE now executes a complete mutual legal assistance request within an average of 35 days, compared to the 60 to 180 days set out in international judicial cooperation guidelines. The average response time for voluntary extradition requests has been reduced to five days.
The scale of demand for the UAE’s judicial cooperation services has grown sharply. Incoming extradition requests rose by 235 per cent between 2021 and 2025, while mutual legal assistance requests increased by 244 per cent over the same period. The UAE currently has more than 140 bilateral judicial cooperation agreements with 53 countries, approximately 30 per cent of which were signed in the past five years.
Al Nuaimi said the system supports the UAE’s broader goal of making international cooperation faster and more effective, strengthening direct communication with central authorities worldwide, and ensuring all procedures remain consistent with the rule of law.
The minister was speaking during a thematic session on international judicial cooperation held as part of the high-level segment of the congress, which continues in Abu Dhabi until 1 October.
Source: Khaleej Times
