1 INTRODUCTION TO THE TRAFFICKING PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES This section provides an introduction to the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking (Trafficking Principles and Guidelines), commencing with a short overview of their development and purpose and outlining their scope and structure. This is followed by a brief analysis of their legal status, an issue that is revisited at various points throughout the Commentary. 1.1. DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE In July 2002 the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights presented a set of Trafficking Principles and Guidelines to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. In her report accompanying this document, the High Commissioner explained that the development of the Trafficking Principles and Guidelines was her Office’s response to the clear need for practical, rights-based policy guidance on the trafficking issue. The Trafficking Principles and Guidelines are the result of a wide-ranging, informal consultation involving individual experts and practitioners as well as representatives of United Nations agencies and programmes and other intergovernmental organizations working on trafficking and related issues. Their purpose is to promote and facilitate the integration of a human rights perspective into national, regional and international anti-trafficking laws, policies and interventions. In presenting the Trafficking Principles and Guidelines to the Economic and Social Council, the High Commissioner noted that her Office had adopted the Trafficking Principles and Guidelines as a framework and reference point for its own work on this issue. She encouraged States and intergovernmental organizations to make use of the Trafficking Principles and Guidelines in their own efforts to prevent trafficking and to protect the rights of trafficked persons.1 1.2. SCOPE AND STRUCTURE As the title suggests, the Trafficking Principles and Guidelines are divided into two parts. The first part contains 17 Principles which, taken together, are intended to provide a foundation for the development, implementation and evaluation of a rights-based response to trafficking. The Principles have been designed for 1 “Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to the Economic and Social Council” (E/2002/68, para. 62). COMMENTARY 15