Welcome
The Slavery Project
- part of the International Human Rights Video Library - is a research
driven project undertaken by Dr. Jean Allain meant to consider the
international legal parameters of slavery, be they in general
international law, the law of the sea, international human rights law,
international humanitarian law, international criminal law,
international labour law, etc. The outcome of the Project will be a
monograph entitled: Slavery in International Law.
Video Collection
The Slavery Project also has a video collection that 'visits' various sites throughout the world -in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America - linked to issues of slavery. The Project also includes interviews with leading practitioners and academics dealing with issues of slavery.
Both the legacy of slavery as well as modern day manifestations -- including its link to trafficking -- are included in the Project which allows students and internet users to gain insights into issues of slavery worldwide.
The Definition of Slavery in International Law
"Slavery in the full sense (often referred to as 'chattel slavey') is defined in the 1926 Convention as 'the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of owership are exercised'. This is a brilliant piece of drafting, because the essential purpose of the Slavery Convention was to prohibit, and help to stamp out, all forms of slavery, and not allow any to escape on technical grounds.
Now there have been forms of slavery in which individual slaves have not actually been the property of those whom they serve; but of course even they would be caught by the definition, which refers to persons 'over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised' -- so that it does not matter whether or not a master actually owns a particular slave, if he exercises powers over him that are normally associated with ownership."
G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labour, Leonie Archer (ed.), 1988, pp21-22.
Publications
Jean Allain, The Slavery Conventions: The Travaux Preparatoires of the 1926 League of Nations Covention and 1956 United Nations Convention, 2008 -- Preface and Contents pages.
Court Judgement
High Court of Australia , The Queen v Tang [2008] HCA 39 ( M5/2008 ), 28 August 2008
Legal Brief
Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Submission in Support of Application for Leave to Intervene and Submission on the Appeal, High Court of Australia, Melbourne, Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecution v Wei Tang, 2008.
Working Papers
Jean Allain, "The Definition of 'Slavery' In General International Law and the Crime of Enslavement within the Rome Statute ", 2007 -- Paper presented at the Guest Lecture Series of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Jean Allain, "A Legal Consideration ‘Slavery' in Light of the Travaux Préparatoires of the 1926 Convention", 2006
Jean Allain, "Fydor Martens and the Question of Slavery at the 1890 Brussels Conference ", 2006
Jean Allain, "Slavery and the League of Nations: Ethiopia as a Civilised Nation", 2006
Jean Allain,"Rough Seas : The Establishment of a Legal Regime to Abolish the International Slave Trade", 2005
Links
1926 Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery and its 1953 Protocol
UN Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery