Signing of Three Protocols Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime

December 6, 2002

1. The Government of Japan, at its Cabinet Meeting, has decided to sign the following three protocols which supplement the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
   • the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (hereinafter referred to as the Protocol on Trafficking in Persons)
   • the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air (hereinafter referred to as the Protocol on Smuggling of Migrants)
   • the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components, and Ammunition (hereinafter referred to as the Protocol on Firearms)
   
   
2. Mr. Koichi Haraguchi, Japanese Ambassador to the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, will sign the three protocols on December 9 (local time, Japan time: December 10) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
   
   
3. In December 1998, an open-ended intergovernmental ad hoc committee was established, by a United Nations General Assembly resolution, to draft the three protocols. After subsequent deliberations, the General Assembly adopted the first two protocols on November 15, 2000, and the Protocol on Firearms on May 31, 2001.
   
   
4. The three protocols establish an international cooperative framework to fight transnational organized crime, which has been rapidly getting complex and more serious in recent years; in particular, trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants, and illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms.
   
   
5. At the Kyushu Okinawa Summit, Japan, as the Chair, appealed the need to strengthen measures against transnational organized crime and the importance of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the three protocols as the pillars of these measures, and has since played a central role as a coordinator. By signing the three protocols, Japan intends to show its stance against transnational organized crime to the international community, and to promote its leadership in coping with such crime.

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