For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 23, 2004
Message to the Senate of the United States
To the Senate of the United States:
With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to
ratification, I transmit herewith the United Nations Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime (the "Convention"), as well as two
supplementary protocols: (1) the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and
Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and (2)
the Protocol Against Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, which
were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 15,
2000. The Convention and Protocols were signed by the United States on
December 13, 2000, at Palermo, Italy.
Accompanying the Convention and Protocols are interpretative notes
for the official records (or "travaux preparatoires") that were
prepared by the Secretariat of the Ad Hoc Committee that conducted the
negotiations, based on discussions that took place throughout the
process of negotiations. These notes are being submitted to the Senate
for information purposes. I also transmit the report of the Department
of State with respect to the Convention and Protocols.
The Convention and Protocols are the first multilateral treaties to
address the phenomenon of transnational organized crime. Their
provisions are explained in the accompanying report of the Department
of State. The report also sets forth proposed reservations and
understandings that would be deposited by the United States with its
instruments of ratification. With these reservations and
understandings, the Convention and Protocols will not require
implementing legislation for the United States.
The Convention and Protocols will be effective tools to assist in
the global effort to combat transnational organized crime in its many
forms, such as trafficking and smuggling of persons. They provide for
a broad range of cooperation, including extradition, mutual legal
assistance, and measures regarding property, in relation to serious
crimes committed by an organized group that has a transnational
element.
The Convention also imposes on the States Parties an obligation to
criminalize, if they have not already done so, certain types of conduct
characteristic of transnational organized crime. For the Convention,
these are: participation in an organized criminal group (i.e.,
conspiracy), money laundering, bribery of domestic public officials,
and obstruction of justice. The Protocols require parties to
criminalize trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants. These
provisions will serve to create a global criminal law standard for
these offenses, several of which (e.g., trafficking in persons)
currently are not criminal in many countries. The Trafficking Protocol
also includes important provisions regarding assistance to and
protection of victims of trafficking.
I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration
to the Convention and Protocols, and that it give its advice and
consent to ratification, subject to the reservations and understandings
described in the accompanying report of the Department of State.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
February 23, 2004.
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