Is Wage Deprivation by State Immigration Controls Incompatible with the Absolute Prohibition on Forced Labour?
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In this session of the Oxford Labour Law Discussion Group, Dr Jack Beadsworth will be presenting his working paper titled Is Wage Deprivation by State Immigration Controls Incompatible with the Absolute Prohibition on Forced Labour?
About the paper
Is wage deprivation conducted by the state against irregular migrants compatible with the absolute prohibition on forced labour in human rights law? Is the dominant interpersonal paradigm of forced labour adequate to capture the full range of state practices that conflict with the absolute prohibition? This paper answers both in the negative. It does so by exploring the paradoxical use of forced labour indicators as immigration control measures, focusing on the structural, deliberate and systematic deprivation of irregular migrants' wages by UK. The paper suggests that the interpersonal paradigm of forced labour is lagging behind developments in state immigration controls and fails to address state-sponsored wage deprivation. Forced labour indicators have an underutilised normative function of censuring labour practices associated with forced labour. This creates two problems. Firstly, when those labour practices are utilised as immigration control practices, this shift escapes the boundaries of the interpersonal forced labour paradigm. Secondly, the prohibition on forced labour and obligations that follow are not substantiated by reference to forced labour indicators, narrowing the prohibition. The paper argues that the interpretation of the absolute prohibition needs correction. It argues that an absolute prohibition on forced labour includes prohibiting the state from redeploying labour practices associated with forced labour as immigration control practices. This is an overlooked incompatibility with human rights law
About the Speaker
Jack Beadsworth is a labour lawyer specialising in the labour rights and human rights of temporary migrant workers. His research interests include labour exploitation and the role of legal structures, immigration law, the criminalisation of migrant labour, the administration of illegal work regimes, and the protection of migrants in international and regional human rights law. His work investigates the relationship between labour law and immigration law and its effect on the vulnerability of temporary migrant workers to exploitation. Jack is currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights to the AHRC-funded Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre, working on the 'Exploitation, Labour Rights, and the Law' project.
Please email rohini.thyagarajan@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk to receive a draft of the paper prior to the session.
This is a hybrid event.
If you would like to join remotely please email rohini.thyagarajan@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk to receive a Teams meeting link.
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