Does reputation matter for states’ compliance with international treaties? States enforcement of anti-trafficking norms Olga A. Avdeyeva ∗ Department of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago, US How and under what conditions do states initiate reforms and comply with international agreements to combat human trafficking? This paper focuses on the post-communist states’ compliance with anti-trafficking norms. The first finding demonstrates the importance of female members of parliament in promoting states’ compliance with anti-trafficking requirements. The second finding reveals the importance of states’ international position and aspirations to join exclusive regional organisations for fostering compliance with the UN Anti-Trafficking Protocols. Keywords: state compliance; international treaties; human trafficking Recent years have witnessed the emergence and proliferation of an international regime to combat human trafficking. The legal framework of this regime combines international and national laws, as well as agreements that guide and define the behaviour of member states in prohibiting, combating and punishing human trafficking 1 . A central international document that defines and guides states’ actions against human trafficking is the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Convention) and its two supplemental protocols, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Trafficking Protocol) and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air. Adopted in 2000 by the UN’s General Assembly, the convention protocols became the first legally binding international instrument 2 that committed ratifying states into adopting a series of measures against transnational organised crime. The measures specified in the protocol include the creation of domestic criminal codes to combat the problem, the adoption of legal frameworks for interstate assistance, extradition, law-enforcement and technical assistance and training. 3 The Trafficking Protocol also provided a clear definition of human trafficking 4 and created legal avenues for protection of the victims of trafficking. 5 While the convention and the protocols defined and introduced a new prohibitive regime against trafficking in persons, it is still not clear why some states chose to comply with it, while others ignored the agreement and have not significantly changed their domestic practices despite the official ratification of these documents. The compliance literature offers several compelling explanations to this dilemma, ranging from a realist power politics and the importance of a hegemonic power for states’ propensity to comply with international treaties, to liberal accounts that emphasise the importance of domestic political structures and processes for the states’ levels of compliance with ISSN 1364-2987 print/ISSN 1744-053X online # 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642987.2010.540240 http://www.tandfonline.com ∗ Email: Oavdeyeva@luc.edu The International Journal of Human Rights Vol. 16, No. 2, February 2012, 298–320