The Centre for Law at Work invites you to a talk by Professor Judy Fudge - Constructing Modern Slavery: Law, Capitalism and Unfree Labour

Abstract:

Modern slavery laws are a response to global capitalism, which undermines the distinction between free and unfree labour and poses intense challenges to state sovereignty. Instead of being a solution, Constructing Modern Slavery argues that modern slavery laws divert attention from the underlying structures and processes that generate exploitation. Focusing on unfree labour associated international immigration and global supply chains, it provides a novel socio-legal genealogy of the concept ‘modern slavery’ through a series of linked case studies of influential actors associated with key legal instruments: the United Nations, the United States, the International Labour Organization, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Walk Free Foundation. Constructing Modern Slavery demonstrates that despite the best efforts of academics, advocates, and policymakers to develop a truly multifaceted approach to modern slavery, it is difficult to uncouple antislavery initiatives from the conservative moral and economic agendas with which they are aligned.

Global Britain and The Modern Slavery Act 2015

Chapter Six explains how modern slavery figured in a revitalised vision of British global sovereignty as EU membership was under threat. The Coalition Government assembled an elite policy network and forged a bipartisan consensus in favour of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Although primarily carceral, the act also required large corporations to disclose their efforts to rid their supply chains of slavery. Part of the Conservative government’s anti-slavery agenda, the Immigration Act 2016 pulled labour regulation further towards criminal law. As home secretary (2010–2016) and prime minister (2016–2019), Theresa May positioned the UK as a critical actor in the global antislavery governance network and fashioned the UK’s fight against modern slavery as a key plank in her vision of Global Britain. After May’s resignation, the pandemic, and Brexit, the Conservative government came to treat victims of modern slavery as if they were illegal migrants undeserving of human rights.

Speaker Bio

Judy Fudge is a professor in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University, which she joined in July 2018. Judy began her academic career in Canada, where she was Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (1987-2006) and Lansdowne Chair in Law at the University of Victoria (2007-2013), before moving to England to teach at the University of Kent (2013-2018). She has held visiting professorships and fellowships at several universities and institutes in Canada and Europe. In 2013, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; in 2014 she received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law at the University of Lund in Sweden; and in 2019 she received the Bora Laskin Award for her distinguished contributions to Canadian Labour Law.

Judy takes a socio-legal approach to studying work and labour and has published extensively on employment and labour law from a range of critical perspectives. Much of her work attempts to engender labour law. She has worked with women’s groups, legal clinics, trade unions and the International Labour Organization. Her most recent work focuses on labour exploitation, modern slavery, and unfree labour in the context of labour migration and global supply chains. She is currently leading a research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada called ‘Governing Forced Labour in Chains’ (www.gflc.ca).

Please see the below Zoom details to join online: 

Zoom invite link  https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/5517397619?pwd=WedE7AmE9dDTpNMj65lE3ST5uTWvr0.1&omn=99156429518

Meeting ID: 551 739 7619

Passcode: 237476