Despite greatly increased attention, attempts to deal with trafficking,
migrant smuggling, and related exploitation at the national, regional, and
international levels have been largely ineffective. At both theoretical and
practical levels, many fundamental questions have remained unanswered.
What exactly is trafficking and how is it to be distinguished from migrant
smuggling? How does the trafficking debate fit in with the current global
tendency towards criminalization of all irregular migration? Do trafficked
persons deserve greater protection than smuggled migrants? Can asylum
seekers be smuggled and/or trafficked? Should trafficking and migrant
smuggling be dealt with as human rights issues or, given their organized
crime implications, are they best left to international criminal justice fora?
With the development of two new international legal instruments on
trafficking and migrant smuggling, these questions are finally being addressed.
This article provides an overview of the Vienna process and its
major outcomes with particular reference to the issue of trafficking. It is
divided into seven parts of which this introduction is the first. The following
section summarizes the principal provisions of the Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime and explains the connection between this instrument and its protocols. The origins of the two protocols are examined
in section three. Section four contains a detailed description and analysis of
the Trafficking Protocol. The Migrant Smuggling Protocol is considered in
section five, and its relationship with the Trafficking Protocol explored in
section six. The final section examines the protocol negotiation process and
includes a number of the author's personal observations