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.

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.

The European Convention on Human Rights: A Commentary is the first complete article-by-article commentary on the ECHR and its Protocols in English. This book provides an entry point for every part of the Convention: the substance of the rights, the workings of the Court, and the enforcement of its judgments. A separate chapter is devoted to each distinct provision or article of the Convention as well as to Protocols 1, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 16, which have not been incorporated in the Convention itself and remain applicable to present law. Each chapter contains: a short introduction placing the provision within the context of international human rights law more generally; a review of the drafting history or preparatory work of the provision; a discussion of the interpretation of the text and the legal issues, with references to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission on Human Rights; and a selective bibliography on the provision. Through a thorough review of the ECHR this commentary is both exhaustive and concise. It is an accessible resource that is ideal for lawyers, students, journalists, and others with an interest in the world's most successful human rights regime.