The Convention is the "parent agreement" to the Protocol. Accordingly, it is
appropriate to examine the Convention's provisions dealing with transnational
prevention obligations to see if they support a notion of mandatory transnational
obligations with respect to trafficking in persons. If there are strong obligations
in the Convention for transnational, social, and economic measures to prevent
organized crime, this would obviously support the interpretation of 9(4) being
set forth herein.
Article 31 of the Convention sets out the obligations and responsibilities that
States Parties have to prevent transnational organized crime. The list of
prevention obligations is outlined in Annex I. This long list of prevention
obligations evinces the central role that prevention has in this Convention.
However, as a textual matter there are several other important points to be made
with respect to this article.