A/HRC/35/33 requested meetings with authorities in Rwanda. After sending a high-level delegation to Rwanda to discuss the case in person, they were granted full access to conduct their own investigation in the country and were able to secure around 100 witness testimonies about the case. These proved indispensable at trial, as other forms of evidence were hard to gather decades after the events. In 2013, a district court in Oslo convicted Bugingo and sentenced him to 21 years in prison. 26. Thus, States can successfully prosecute cross-border international crimes involving economic actors, even when such cases are complex and involve events occurring many years earlier. Specialized units devoted to international crimes help in that regard, and networks such as the Genocide Network of the European Union can facilitate cross-border cooperation. 26 What is needed is a recognition of the role that companies and other economic actors play in these crimes and a corresponding willingness to pursue these actors alongside other perpetrators. IV. Cases involving transnational harm and economic actors 27. While there have been few cases in which economic actors have been charged for violating core international crimes, successful investigations and prosecutions are more prevalent for other cross-border harms closely linked to human rights. By detailing the practices that law enforcement agencies use to cooperate in cases of trafficking in persons, environmental crimes, transnational bribery and corruption, the Working Group hopes that States will realize that they already possess a toolkit that can be transposed to the business and human rights context. Thus, in the following sections, the Working Group discusses the legal frameworks, tools and networks that facilitate cooperation between States with respect to each crime and provide cases to illustrate how these work in practice. The cases demonstrate that, when States decide to act, they are able to effectively work together. A. Trafficking in persons 28. Trafficking in persons is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has rightly been the focus of many Governments and law enforcement agencies around the world. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that millions of persons are trafficked at any given point in time and that annual profits from trafficking range in the tens of billions of dollars.27 29. Trafficking in persons is a serious crime that has been recognized as a serious human rights issue. Numerous international and regional human rights instruments prohibit trafficking, and the General Assembly and Human Rights Council have repeatedly affirmed that trafficking violates and impairs fundamental human rights. Moreover, practices associated with trafficking, such as debt bondage and forced labour, constitute discrete human rights violations. 30. Although trafficking in persons can occur within a single jurisdiction, it often has cross-border elements. Victims are routinely trafficked across borders to be exploited in different States. Likewise, traffickers move between States to evade detection and punishment. Since victims, witnesses, defendants, and actions can all be in different States, there is a growing consensus that the problem cannot be countered by any one country in isolation. 26 27 8 The European network of contact points in respect of persons responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, otherwise known as the Genocide Network, was established through Council of the European Union Decision 2002/494/JHA “to ensure a close cooperation between … national authorities in investigating and prosecuting [international crimes]”. See www.eurojust.europa.eu/Practitioners/networks-and-fora/Pages/genocide-network.aspx. See ILO, ILO Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (Geneva, 2008), p. 1. Available from www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@declaration/documents/publication/wcms_090356. pdf.

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