International law is a powerful conduit for combating human trafficking. The most reputable and recent instruments of international law that have set the course for how to define, prevent, and prosecute human trafficking are the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its two related protocols: the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and the United Nations Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air, which entered into force in 2003-2004. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) created these conventions, which have supported international law's ability to combat human trafficking. In support of enforcing these instruments, the UNODC established the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) in 2007.
Instruments that have dealt with human trafficking date back to the abolition of slavery. They include provisions within the Slavery Convention (1926) and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956). Additional tools of international law that include segments against the trafficking of persons include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights (1966), The United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949), and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979). These instruments laid the foundation for the contemporary conventions and efforts to eliminating trafficking.
