Chet Mitchell Memorial Lecture: Constructing Modern Slavery: Law, Capitalism and Unfree Labour

Wednesday, March 4 at 5:00 pm to Wednesday, February 4, 2026 at 6:30 pm

• In-person event
• 2017, Dunton Tower, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6

Constructing Modern Slavery: Law, Capitalism and Unfree Labour illustrates how legal meaning is shaped by cultural political economy and how law’s technicalities, in turn, shape what we understand as unfree labour. Although not defined in law, as an umbrella term ‘modern slavery’  highlights the unfreedom captured by legal concepts – slavery, forced labour, and human trafficking – defined in different international laws. Focusing on forms of unfree labour that cross national borders (international immigration and global supply chains), the book provides a novel socio-legal genealogy of the concept ‘modern slavery’ over a quarter century using five linked, multi-scalar case studies: the United Nations and the United States; Walk Free Foundation; the International Labour Organization; the European Union, and the United Kingdom. It develops the ideas of transnational law, legal jurisdiction as an assemblage of scale and governance, and reconfigured sovereignty. It reveals how modern slavery laws (supply chain transparency and mandatory human rights due diligence laws) and laws prohibiting human trafficking are attempts to mediate the escalating tensions around borders and markets created by neoliberal capitalism’s reliance on managed migration and free trade as economic drivers.

Refreshments will be provided.