The author discusses the spread of smuggling, distinctions between smuggling and trafficking, and compares the protocols resulting from the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime in 2000. She asserts that the two protocols on trafficking and smuggling mark an important step in the battle against exploitation and danger that migrants can encounter. The protocols, she says, could advance the human rights of migrants if implemented fully. She stresses that that an appropriate balance between rights and security must be found, and that the new provisions must be read against the body of current human rights law and labor standards. She writes that “The spread of human smuggling needs to be understood in the context of globalization and migration.”
