An original analysis of the definition and scope of the right not to be held in slavery, servitude and forced labour.

Although human trafficking has a long and ignoble history, it is only recently that trafficking has become a major political issue for states and the international community and the subject of detailed international rules. Anne T. Gallagher calls on her direct experience working within the United Nations to chart the development of new international laws on this issue. She links these rules to the international law of state responsibility as well as key norms of international human rights law, transnational criminal law, refugee law and international criminal law, in the process identifying and explaining the major legal obligations of states with respect to preventing trafficking, protecting and supporting victims, and prosecuting perpetrators. This book is a groundbreaking work: a unique and valuable resource for policymakers, advocates, practitioners and scholars working in this controversial and important field.

What is 'modern slavery' and who is responsible for it? What is the relevance of human rights law, which primarily regulates state conduct, for practices predominantly committed by private actors? Where can victims seek justice and redress when national authorities fail to protect them? These questions are the core focus of this book. Marija Jovanovich analyses the role and responsibility of states for addressing 'modern slavery' DS a diverse set of practices usually perpetrated by non-state actors DS against the backdrop of international human rights law. It explores the dynamic between criminal law and human rights law and reveals the different ways these legal domains work to secure justice for victims. The book considers the 'absolute' nature of the prohibition of modern slavery in human rights law, the range of practices covered by this umbrella term and their mutual relationships, the positive obligations of states established by international human rights tribunals owed to individuals subject to modern slavery, and the standards for assessing state responsibility in these situations. By engaging with the concept of exploitation in human rights law, Jovanovich glues together diverse practices of modern slavery, including servitude, forced labour, and human trafficking, into a coherent concept. The book elucidates the theoretical foundations of this fundamental human right and explains why human trafficking has an independent place within it. In addition to providing a comprehensive critique of the existing human rights jurisprudence, this book offers a roadmap for the future development of law on this subject emphasizing the limits of human rights law as a tool for addressing modern slavery.

The Law and Slavery sets out the articles, book reviews and case notes by Professor Jean Allain which led to pioneering exploration of forced labour, servitudes, slavery, the slave trade, and trafficking in his 2013 Slavery in International Law: Of Human Exploitation and Trafficking (MNP). This collection brings together Professor Allain’s considerations of the evolution of legal abolition internationally, his critique of the then status quo in the area of slavery and the law, and goes on to develop the foundations of a legal understanding of various servitudes and slavery based on his archival research and legal analysis. Professor Allain’s research has transformed the landscape of how we understand contemporary slavery and those other servitudes which constitute human exploitation.

The last decade has witnessed an increasing focus on the relationship between climate change and human rights. Several international human rights bodies have expressed concern about the negative implications of climate change for the enjoyment of human rights, and the Paris Agreement is the first multilateral climate agreement to refer explicitly to states' human rights obligations in connection with climate change. Yet despite this, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the role of international human rights law in enhancing accountability for climate action or inaction. As the Paris Agreement has shifted the focus of the climate change regime towards voluntary action, and the humanitarian impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt around the world, accountability for climate change has become an increasingly salient issue. This book offers a timely and comprehensive analysis of the legal issues related to accountability for the human rights impact of climate change, drawing on the state responsibility regime. It explains when and where state action relating to climate change may amount to a violation of human rights, and evaluates various avenues of legal redress available to victims. The overall analysis offers a perceptive insight into the potential of innovative rights-based climate actions to shape climate and energy policies around the world.

Slavery in International Law sets out the law related to slavery and lesser servitudes, including forced labour and debt bondage; thus developing an overall understanding of the term human ‘exploitation’, which is at the heart of the definition of trafficking.

State responsibility in international law is considered one of the cornerstones of the field. For a long time it remained the exclusive responsibility system due to the primacy of States as subjects of international law. Its unique position has nonetheless been challenged by several developments both within and outside the international legal order, such as the rise of alternative responsibility ideas and practices, as well as globalization and its consequences. This book adopts a critical and holistic approach to the law of State responsibility and analyzes the functionality of the general rules of State responsibility in a changed international landscape characterized by the fragmentation of responsibility. It is argued that State responsibility is not equally relevant across the broad spectrum of international obligations, and that alternative constructions of responsibility, namely international criminal law and international liability, have increased in standing.

This book reflects on how the concept of human dignity, a central and classical concept in public international law, is used to protect the rights of particularly vulnerable sectors of contemporary society.

This volume brings together a cast of leading experts to carefully explore how the history and iconography of slavery has been invoked to support a series of government interventions, activist projects, legal instruments, and rhetorical performances. However well-intentioned these interventions might be, they nonetheless remain subject to a host of limitations and complications. Recent efforts to combat contemporary slavery are too often sensationalist, self-serving, and superficial and, therefore, end up failing the crucial test of speaking truth to power. The widely held notion that antislavery is one of those rare issues that "transcends" politics or ideology is only sustainable because the underlying issues at stake have been constructed and demarcated in a way that minimizes direct challenges to dominant political and economic interests. This must change. By providing an original approach to the underlying issues at stake, Contemporary Slavery will help readers understand the political practices that have been concealed beneath the popular rhetoric and establishes new conversations between scholars of slavery and trafficking and scholars of human rights and social movements. Contributors: Jean Allain, Jonathan Blagbrough, Roy Brooks, Annie Bunting, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Andrew Crane, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, Fuyuki Kurasawa, Benjamin Lawrance, Joel Quirk, and Darshan Vigneswaran