Addition to UN treaty on organized crime to require States to outlaw migrant smuggling

Countries will soon be required to outlaw the smuggling of migrants under an addition to a key United Nations treaty against cross-border organized crime.

The Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea, supplementary to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which will enter into force on Wednesday, is being described by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as a landmark in the fight against the transport of people across borders for financial gain.

“This tool has been designed to strengthen the international community’s response in countering transnational organized crime groups and their highly sophisticated networks to smuggle migrants, exploiting human misery and making sizeable criminal profits in the process,” the Vienna-based UNODC said.

The Protocol aims to criminalize the smuggling of migrants and those who practice it, while recognizing that illegal migration itself is not a crime and that migrants are often victims needing protection. Under the new legal instrument, governments agree to make migrant smuggling a criminal offence under national laws, adopt special measures to crack down on migrant smuggling by sea, boost international cooperation to prevent migrant smuggling, and seek out and prosecute offenders.

UNODC provides technical assistance to Member States in order to support the implementation and ratification process. As of 20 January the Protocol was signed by 112 Member States and ratified by 40.