This comprehensive Commentary provides the first fully up-to-date analysis and interpretation of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. It offers a concise yet thorough article-by-article guide to the Convention’s anti-trafficking standards and corresponding human rights obligations.

This Convention aims to prevent trafficking in human beings, protect victims of trafficking and prosecute traffickers. Its comprehensive scope of application encompasses all forms of trafficking (whether national or transnational, linked or not to organised crime) and covers all victims of trafficking (women, men and children) as well as all forms of exploitation. With an emphasis on the human rights of victims of trafficking, the Convention contains measures to ensure the proper identification of victims, their assistance and protection as well as their compensation. It also contains measures to ensure the effective investigation and prosecution of traffickers. In addition, it sets out measures to promote international co-operation and partnerships with civil society. Finally, it provides for a mechanism to monitor compliance with the obligations it contains.

This book offers a comprehensive, article-by-article legal commentary on the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols on trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants, and trafficking in firearms and ammunition. The Convention- often referred to by the acronym UNTOC- was approved by the UN General Assembly on 15 November 2000 and made available for governments to sign at a high-level conference in Palermo, the heartland of the Italian Mafia, on 12-15 December 2000. For this reason, UNTOC is sometimes also referred to as the 'Palermo Convention'. The Convention entered into force on 29 September 2003. The purpose of UNTOC is to promote cooperation to prevent and combat transnational organized crime more effectively. UNTOC seeks to promote consistency among national legal systems and set standards for domestic laws so that States parties can effectively combat transnational organized crime. UNTOC is supplemented by three protocols: the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air, and Sea, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, and the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components, and Ammunition. Article by article, this books presents the text of each provision of the Convention and the Protocols, followed by a systematic analysis of their background and negotiating history, their interpretation by the Conference of the Parties and its working groups, in judicial decisions by domestic and international courts, , in the academic literature, and in official material published by international organisations, chief among them the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the guardian of UNTOC and the Protocols. The authors offer critical, scholarly commentary. The book serves as a compendium for those using, researching, or studying provisions under UNTOC and the Protocols and as a handbook for those charged with implementing and enforcing them.

In the light of the urgent need for cooperative and collaborative action against trafficking, this publication presents examples of promising practice from around the world relating to trafficking interventions. It is hoped that the guidance offered, the practices showcased and the resources recommended in this Toolkit will inspire and assist policymakers, law enforcers, judges, prosecutors, victim service providers and members of civil society in playing their role in the global effort against trafficking in persons. The present edition is an updated and expanded version of the Toolkit published in 2006.

An original analysis of the definition and scope of the right not to be held in slavery, servitude and forced labour.

This books demonstrates the difficulty of protecting victims of human trafficking from being held liable for crimes they were compelled to commit in the course, or as a consequence, of being trafficked, under current European law. The legislation remains vague and potentially inadequate to recognise victimhood, safeguard the human rights of victims, and avoid further victimisation. Muraszkiewicz explains how the non-liability principle is rooted in criminal and human rights law, and proposes a more efficient provision and framework which would protect trafficked persons, and do better to encourage victims to act as witnesses in criminal proceedings against the perpetrators. In doing so the book will provide relevant stakeholders, including policy makers and law enforcement authorities, with a better understanding of the non-liability principle and how it ought to be used in practice.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child has changed the paradigm of how (human rights) law looks at children: from “objects” of protection to full rights-holders of all human rights. Consequently, social rights are not voluntary welfare services but an expression of the dignity and rights of the child. In Social Rights of Children in Europe Katharina Häusler provides a thorough analysis of how these basic social rights are interpreted by the three major human rights bodies on the level of the Council of Europe and the European Union. It thus offers not only an excellent picture of the main lines of interpretation but also of the major gaps and challenges for the realisation of children’s social rights in Europe.