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Draft Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime

NCJ Number
179591
Date Published
1999
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This document presents and explains the draft text for a United Nations protocol intended to establish the smuggling of migrants as a criminal offense under countries' national laws and to promote and facilitate cooperation among countries to prevent, investigate, and prosecute human smuggling.
Abstract
This document presents and explains the draft text for a United Nations protocol intended to establish the smuggling of migrants as a criminal offense under countries' national laws and to promote and facilitate cooperation among countries to prevent, investigate, and prosecute human smuggling. The preamble expresses concern about the rapid development of the smuggling of migrants and the significant increase in the activities of transnational criminal organizations that make illicit profits by smuggling migrants across national boundaries. It also expresses concern that smuggling may lead to the misuse of established immigration procedures and can endanger the lives and security of individual migrants involved. It recommends a global approach that includes socioeconomic approaches, and uses a comprehensive international legal instrument that focuses on crime prevention and criminal justice, with emphasis on the activities of those who organize and facilitate the smuggling of migrants. Individual sections focus on criminalization of migrant smuggling, the protocol's scope of application, jurisdiction, smuggling of migrants by sea, compliance measures and arrangements, additional legislative and administrative measures, information, prevention, control of documents, verification of the legitimacy and validity of documents, training, the return of smuggled migrants, and other topics. Footnotes