State-empowered entities as sites of progress for international anti-trafficking law and policy?

Abstract

Since the adoption of the Palermo Protocol in 2000, international anti-trafficking law and policy have developed significantly. While both States and non-state actors have had a role to play in such development, this article focuses on the contribution of what (Sivakumaran, 2017) labels as “state-empowered entities” (SEEs), actors that are “empowered” by states' and thus cannot be seen as “truly non-state in character.” Indeed, a range of SEEs, such as UNODC, the Council of Europe's Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Persons to name a few engage substantively with international anti-trafficking law. Situated within a theoretical framework that recognizes “soft” law's normativity and important interactive relationship with “hard” law, this article analyses the ongoing role of SEEs in operationalizing international anti-trafficking law, highlighting the norm creation, interpretation, and enforcement functions that such entities can and do play. Ultimately, this article frames SEEs as underexplored sites of progress for international anti-trafficking law, and calls for more engagement with the work and output of relevant SEEs, within anti-trafficking research and practice.