State Responsibility for Modern Slavery: Uncovering and Bridging the Gap

Modern slavery is one of the prevailing international challenges. Although slavery has been illegal under international law for over a century, 40.3 million people were in modern slavery on any given day in 2016. The UK has been at the forefront of tackling modern slavery on national and international levels. Existing research and strategies have focused on the role of the non-state actors and the positive obligations of states to ‘revent, protect and punish’ these non-state actors. The responsibility of states has been overlooked or avoided. This project, in partnership with the United Nations University, aims to address a gap in the current responses.