TRACKING THE IMPLEMENTATION GAP: EMPIRICALLY ASSESSING THE TRANSLATION OF INTERNATIONAL ANTISLAVERY COMMITMENTS IN DOMESTIC LEGISLATION GLOBALLY KATARINA SCHWARZ * AND JEAN ALLAIN ∗∗ TABLE OF CONTENTS I II III The Challenges of International Law in Prohibiting Slavery ............................... 160 Mapping Implementation of International Commitments to Prohibit Human Exploitation........................................................................................................... 161 Conclusions: The Value of Mapping Domestic Implementation of International Commitments .................................................................................. 166 The prohibition against slavery in international law is unique in several significant ways. First, it has been recognised by the International Court of Justice as a jus cogens norm carrying obligations erga omnes. 1 That is to say, it is a norm of international law binding on all states, from which no derogation is permissible and violation of which attracts the legal interest of the international community as a whole entailing an obligation to cooperate to bring such a breach to an end. 2 Second, it represents the first universal effort enshrined in international law to influence the domestic legislation of all states on a normative question. 3 Third, it is often seen as the first global human rights movement and the root of international human rights law, centring the concept of individual human dignity within the traditionally statist constructs of international law. 4 And finally, given its importance at the international level, it is often presumed that its prohibition at the domestic level is already complete everywhere. * ∗∗ 1 2 3 4 The Rights Lab, University of Nottingham, UK. Faculty of Law, Monash University, Australia; Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull, UK. Case Concerning the Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company Ltd (Belgium v Spain) (Judgment) [1970] ICJ Rep 3, 32 [34]. On the implications of this status, see Jean Allain, ‘Slavery and Its Obligations Erga Omnes’ (2019) 36(1) The Australian Year Book of International Law 83. This occurred in international instruments adopted in the early twentieth century in relation to both slavery and the slave trade, and the so-called ‘white slave traffic’. See International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, opened for signature 4 May 1910, 1 LNTS 83 (entered into force 18 July 1905) art 3; Slavery Convention, opened for signature 25 September 1926, 60 LNTS 253 (entered into force 9 March 1927) art 6 (‘1926 Slavery Convention’). See Jenny S Martinez, The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Reprint edn, Oxford University Press 2014).