Trafficking in Persons - Prosecution from a European Perspective

The crime of trafficking in persons is being increasingly committed in an international context, and has been facilitated by globalisation. As is transparent from a file study conducted in the Netherlands and which is included in this book, many of the problems in prosecuting this crime are aggravated by the fact that more than one state is involved. National criminal laws based on state sovereignty and national competences are not sufficient to prosecute and to combat it adequately. As trafficking in persons must be considered to be a transnational crime, solutions for an effective prosecution should be sought beyond national borders.

This resulting publication may provide an initial impetus for an approach at the EU level to prosecute trafficking in persons more effectively, based on the concept of regional jurisdiction. The extent to which recently developed instruments and initiatives within the EU, such as the European Arrest Warrant, Eurojust and a European Public Prosecutor, can be of use in this approach is dealt with in this book. Furthermore, the changing role of state sovereignty is not left to one side in this discussion. The final conclusion that can be drawn is that, for the moment, a dual track should be followed in order to prosecute the trafficking in persons more effectively.