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Topic 1: Ensuring Fair Treatment of Prisoners

As a component of the “legal toolkit” for the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, Resolution 1984/47 “Procedures for the Effective Implementation of the Standard Minimum Rules of the Treatment of Prisoners” sets in place a framework for international standards for the treatment for prisoners. Within this framework, the Model Agreement on the Transfer of Foreign Prisoners and Recommendations on the Treatment of Foreign Prisoners (MATFP) exists, enumerating the rights and processes of foreign prisoners in national judicial systems.

The MATFP addresses a wide range of rights, from education and vocational training to awareness of the workings of the judicial system that they are being held within and contact with consular authorities. These rights, which seem basic and fundamentally inherent in review, continue to present a great challenge to international justice. Defining and ensuring these rights is particularly salient today in the context of national jurisdiction over non-state actors, persons identified by some western legal systems as “unlawful” or “lawful” enemy combatants.

Topic 2: Addressing the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons

As a supplemental Protocol to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (PPSPT) entered into force on 25 December 2003 by General Assembly Resolution 55/25. Relatively recent in its implementation, the PPSPT is the first to be legally binding, taking an aggressive stance on addressing the issues of Human Trafficking. The PPSPT focuses on two primary concerns in addressing this issue. First, it provides a uniform framework for the protection of trafficked persons, attempting to decrease the variation among national policies. Second, the PPSPT addresses the importance of education amongst victims, advocating their human rights.

An evaluation of the PPSPT and its effectiveness is more than just an evaluation of the document based off of its articles and provisions. The PPSPT was created as a supplementary protocol to the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (CTC) in correlation with two other protocols. Therefore, a thorough evaluation of the PPSPT requires the considerations of all four of these documents. The PPSPT is also expansive in its goal of addressing all facets of the question of human trafficking. As is stated in its name, the PPSPT addresses the prevention, the suppression, and the punishment of trafficking in persons, which opens up discussion on the criminalization of those who commit the offense as well as the development of safety measures to protect those who fall victim to the offense. Literature and international dialogue on the effectiveness of the CTC on and the PPSPT are readily available through UN sponsored documentation, national documentation, and through critical analysis provided by third parties. The issue of implementation and effectiveness in an international community with diverse legal, cultural, and political philosophies will provide for dynamic discussion amongst delegates.