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Transnational Criminal Law in a Globalized World: The Case of Trafficking

Prabha Kotiswaran


Abstract

Almost twenty years since the negotiation of the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking, anti-trafficking law and discourse continue to be in a state of tremendous flux and dynamic evolution. While the efficacy of using criminal law to tackle an irreducibly socio-economic problem of labour exploitation was always suspect, scholars and activists alike sought to remedy the excesses of a criminal justice approach by articulating a human rights and later labour approach to trafficking. Incorporated into target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals, trafficking has begun to morph into a development issue around which international organisations have started to mobilise considerable resources. While these varied frames for conceptualising trafficking have resulted in the weak institutionalisation of the trafficking TLO, my paper argues that the crime-control approach to trafficking remains hegemonic and lends itself to consolidation in domestic legal contexts over other approaches to trafficking.