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Travaux Préparatoires of the negotiations for the elaboration of the United Nations Convention against Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto

Document number
2039
Date
2006
Title
Travaux Préparatoires of the negotiations for the elaboration of the United Nations Convention against Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto
Author/publisher
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
International Law,
Summary
The travaux préparatoires provide the background to the elaboration of the definition of trafficking as laid down in the Palermo Protocol, which has been an issue of major struggle and dispute between those who consider prostitution itself to constitute trafficking (abolitionists) and those who consider prostitution a form of labour, acknowledging the sex industry as a sector in which trafficking occurs. The definition of trafficking in the Palermo Protocol represents a compromise between these positions as it allows room for interpretation.

The UNODC presents the travaux préparatoires on its website as the official records of the negotiations of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (General Assembly resolution 55/25, annex I) and its three supplementary Protocols, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air (resolution 55/25, annexes II and III, respectively) and the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition (resolution 55/255, annex).

The purpose of the publication is to track the progress of the negotiations in the open-ended intergovernmental Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of a Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which was established by the General Assembly by its resolution 53/111 of 9 December 1998, with terms of reference supplemented by the Assembly in its resolution 53/114 of 9 December 1998, and requested to finalize the draft texts and submit them directly to the Assembly for adoption (resolution 54/126). It is intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the background of the Convention and its three  Protocols and, by presenting the evolution of the texts, to provide the reader with an understanding of the issues confronted by the Ad Hoc Committee and the solutions it found. Thus, the publication is intended to provide a better, in-depth understanding of the Convention and its Protocols.
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