Name: A Struggle for the Soul of Anti-Trafficking at the League of Nations
Start: 2024-11-06T16:30:00+00:00
End: 2024-11-06T18:00:00+00:00
Location: Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation

A Wilberforce Institute Public Lecture by Professor Jean Allain
About this Event

A Struggle for the Soul of Anti-Trafficking at the League of Nations by Professor Jean Allain

We are delighted to host Professor Jean Allain as part of the Wilberforce Institute's Public Lecture programme, in association with Hull Museums.

The historical evolution of the international framework of what is called today human trafficking is littered with imposture. In his presentation, Prof Allain will examine two episodes in the 1920s which speak to the dissimulation which transpired within the League of Nations which allowed it to first capture the anti-trafficking framework; then change its very nature.

Considering the content of a Confidential folder retrieved from the League of Nations Archives, Professor Allain will set out the collusion which transpired between a Members State and a League senior employee to wrestle the 'white slave traffic' framework away from France so that it might be housed within the League’s apparatus. Taking advantage of an international order in formation -- the result of the League being the first ever inter-governmental organisation which aspired to universal membership -- the individuals in question used the lack of 'standard operating procedures' in the very early years of the League to achieve their aim. Rather interestingly, these machinations did not go unnoticed, as the League's unanimity rule was put to the test when more than forty percent of Assembly Members abstained from voting to adopt the resulting 1921 Convention.

Having captured the now 'Trafficking in Women and Children' framework, the League of Nations was then happy to oblige the United States of America in engaging in this work. The result, benefiting from funding from John Rockefeller, Jr.'s Bureau of Social Hygiene, was in-country enquiries investigating 'trafficking' in more than 40 countries and colonies. Again, the internal documents tell a different story than the public version published as a 1927 Report. That is, that the undiplomatic hostility within the drafting committee nearly caused its implosion; the result of perceived American bad faith and the successful redefining of 'trafficking' as no longer being focused on children or coerced women, but instead on anybody associated with international prostitution.

These two episodes speak to the lurking impostures of the early years of anti-trafficking. Professor Allain will consider these crises in testimony within the larger context of his study of the overall international regime of human trafficking.

Jean Allain is Professor of International Law with the Faculty of Law, Monash University, Australia. For 2023 and 2024, he is Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Nottingham. Prof Allain is also Adjunct Professor, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia; and Extraordinary Professor, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Between 2015-2021 he held concurrent positions as Professor of International Law at the Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull, UK; and was Special Adviser to Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest international human rights organisation.

Professor Allain holds a doctorate from the Graduate Institute, University of Geneva (HEI), and clerked for the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

This year we are teaming up with Hull Museums to offer attendees at our public lectures the opportunity to visit Wilberforce House Museum next door before they join us for the lecture. As a result all our lectures will begin at 4.30pm, directly after the Museum closes, and all will take place at our home in Oriel Chambers, 27 High Street, Hull, HU1 1NE. We are very grateful for the financial support Hull Museums is providing to the Wilberforce Institute’s public lecture programme, and hope that some of you will take the opportunity to have a look round their exhibitions and displays in advance of the lectures. Please join us for refreshments from 4.15pm onwards, and if you can, stay afterwards for a glass of wine and a chance to talk with our speaker.

There are a limited number of tickets available to attend in person. If you can’t make it in person, you can still enjoy the lectures by streaming online – please select the ticket according to your preference when you make your booking.