Abstract

With the rapidly increasing rate of migration – a by-product of a more globalised world – human traffickers have greater opportunities to exploit those who migrate to other States. A destination State can adopt one of two theoretical models when responding to human traffickers and trafficked persons: a criminal model and/or a human rights model. This dissertation examines whether international human trafficking law and destination States adopt a criminal or human rights model. Chapter 1 introduces human trafficking, describes the methodology and defines key terms. Chapter 2 establishes two theoretical models that a destination State can employ to regulate human trafficking. Chapter 3 discusses the development of international human trafficking treaties in the pre-human rights law era, from the 1880s until 1945. Chapter 4 discusses the development of international human trafficking treaties in the human rights law era, from 1945 until the present and analyses this period in terms of the criminal and human rights models. Chapter 5 uses a set of indicators to determine which model the six destination States have adopted. Chapter 6 draws conclusions.