ABSTRACT
Since 2000, a dizzying array of international conventions, treaties, protocols and policies attempt to address human trafficking, together with national legal and policy interventions. The United Nations, the Council of Europe and the European Union have been major bodies promoting new international law, while the European Court of Human Rights has made some influential rulings on trafficking insofar as it falls under the European Convention on Human Rights. The British government in turn brought in a series of piecemeal legal reforms dealing with trafficking by amending existing legislation but then in 2015 introduced consolidating legislation, the Modern Slavery Act 2015. One of the aims of this chapter is simply to explain the generation and interaction of these legal mechanisms.
