E/CN.4/2002/94 page 7 of the 20 ratifications necessary for the Convention to enter into force. The Special Rapporteur takes this opportunity to recommend all States that have not yet done so to consider ratifying this important instrument. 12. The Special Rapporteur emphasizes the importance of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea. These three agreements are important references for the protection of migrants’ rights, because they govern protection in the situations where the most extreme violations of migrants’ rights occur. Their ratification would be an important step towards effectively preventing the traffic in and smuggling of human beings and avoiding penalizing the victims. 13. The Special Rapporteur regards as particularly important the clauses in those instruments calling on States to classify the trafficking in and smuggling of human beings as criminal offences, and to establish as aggravating circumstances any that, for example, endanger the lives or safety of migrants. She emphasizes the wording in the Protocol against the smuggling of migrants which states explicitly that “migrants shall not become liable to criminal prosecution” for having been the object of the offences covered by the Protocol, which is contrary to what she has come across in a variety of accounts since she took up her mandate. 14. The Protocols are international legal frameworks for efforts to combat and prevent trafficking and smuggling through international cooperation, and set out specific guidelines on the appropriate strategies and methods to follow. They also state the principles that must be respected when the victims of smuggling and trafficking are repatriated or returned, laying emphasis on the victims’ dignity and safety. As this report was being completed, 140 States had signed the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and 6 had become parties, 101 States had signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children but only 4 had ratified it, while 97 States had signed the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea, and 4 had ratified that. 15. The Special Rapporteur was extremely interested to receive, during 2001, the report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of non-citizens, Mr David Weissbrodt, submitted to the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights at its fifty-third session pursuant to Sub-Commission decision 2000/103 on the rights of non-citizens (E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/20 and Add.1). 16. The Special Rapporteur on the rights of non-citizens examines, instrument by instrument, the rights that non-citizens have, international and regional case law, and the comments and recommendations made by the bodies established under the treaties concerned. The Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants regards this report as a worthy contribution to the systematizing of the protective legal framework for non-citizens in the international sphere. She considers it a successful compilation of the challenges involved in providing a clear definition of those rights in international law. The report mentions, for instance, the important work that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination could continue to carry out, the better to articulate the rights of non-citizens in matters of non-discrimination.