ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the law's role in influencing trafficking debates and analyses how legislation reinforces mainstream approaches to trafficking. It includes the way in which the law defines who is recognised by society as a victim of trafficking and why certain factors are labelled as causes. The chapter deals with the primary international legal instrument related to human trafficking, the Trafficking Protocol, including the establishment of a global definition. It presents other legal instruments at the international and regional levels that are relevant to the question of how trafficking is conceptualised. The chapter examines a select number of national laws, in both sending and receiving countries. The annexing of the Trafficking Protocol to a convention focused on organised crime prevention and criminal justice was a deliberate step that continues to shape the mainstream trafficking framework and the idea that trafficking is a form of organised crime.
