ABSTRACT
In this article I revisit the history of international law in relation to slavery and its abolition. Slavery is one of the very few issues that are indisputably and unanimously condemned by modern international lawyers. The prohibition against slavery is regularly cited as a ius cogens norm while the long campaign to abolish the transatlantic slave trade has been presented as ‘the most successful episode ever’ in the history of our discipline. Over the last couple of years, however, a number of international lawyers have looked at the history of international law and slavery in a more critical vein. They have shed light on the intricate relationship between the legal abolition of slavery and European imperialism. These historical studies are particularly instructive insofar as they destabilise the discipline’s self-conception as an anti-slavery champion. What will need to be explained is why the counterpoint ceases to be enlightening when speaking about the present and debating which institutional arrangements should address modern forms of slavery.
