Le Centre de droit international vous invite à son prochain « Midi du Centre » le mardi 8 mars 2022 qui sera animé par Amy Weatherburn. Anciennement chercheuse au Human Rights Law Centre de l’Université de Nottingham (2012-2014), Amy Weatherburn est actuellement chargée de recherches (FRS-FNRS) et chercheuse au Centre de droit européen ainsi qu’à l’Institut d’études européennes de l’ULB. Intitulée « From theory to practice: critical reflections on the legal conceptualisation of labour exploitation in human trafficking law », sa présentation se situe dans le prolongement de sa monographie Labour Exploitation in Human Trafficking Law (Intersentia, 2021).

Elle présente l’objet de cette recherche comme suit : « The lamentation of the lack of legal clarification of labour exploitation within the human trafficking legal framework led to an endeavour to better conceptualise labour exploitation in law. (…) Given the legal, moral and political obstacles that have hampered progress towards legal clarity of the notion of exploitation to date, law alone is not the answer. (…) Initially, the discussion of the intended outcome of the human trafficking process – the exploitation – is revisited by problematising the existing definition in international law. The international definition of human trafficking restricts the exploitation to an intentional aspect (“for the purpose of exploitation”). However (…) the definition of human trafficking should be realigned to place the focus on the actual exploitation. This observation comes from the empirical findings of case law analysis that demonstrates that all cases of human trafficking are identified when exploitation has already taken place. In this regard, it is asserted that due attention must be paid to assessing the impact of the exploitation from the perspective of the exploited party, regardless of how they arrived in the situation. The aforementioned assessment of the centrality of the exploitation must also take heed of the fluidity of the individual’s circumstances and the possibility for there to be a deterioration in working conditions overtime. This reflection refutes common misconceptions relating to the autonomy and agency of workers. (…) All critical reflections will be accompanied by concrete examples from the case law analysis, in order to illustrate that the primary assertion of this paper, that the effectiveness of the proposed legal conceptualisation of labour exploitation will depend upon other factors both within and beyond the parameters of the law. »

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