In 2011 this course will be Special Topics in International Law 2: Transnational Criminal Law

This course examines the international legal framework that States have created to regulate and respond to transnational crime, with a particular focus on the application of this framework to the migration context (migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons). 

At the multi-lateral level, key instruments include the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its three Protocols on trafficking in persons, migrant smuggling and small arms.  At the regional and bilateral level, there are a variety of instruments that seek to respond to particular crime types and to regulate the various tools of international cooperation (mutual assistance, extradition, monitoring of financial transactions, and informal (police to police and other) cooperation).  These instruments exist within the much broader framework of international law constituted by, amongst other things, international human rights law, refugee law and the law of the sea.      

Students who complete this course will:  

• Be familiar with the historical context, and political and policy debates that impacted on the development of this legal framework.
• Be familiar with the range of substantive legal obligations created by this legal framework and able to apply them to real world situations.
• Have the opportunity to interrogate a range of legal, policy and practical issues that arise from the implementation of these frameworks in the real world (for example, debates around maritime interdiction regimes; the criminalization of migration; and cross-border law enforcement cooperation)

10% participation, 40% take-home exam, 50% research essay.

26 Contact Hours (Intensive Delivery)

LAWS8182 Principles of International Law

International Human Rights Law

A Gallagher, The International Law of Human Trafficking, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

F David, Labour Trafficking, Australian Institute of Criminology, 2010. http://www.aic.gov.au/en/publications/current%20series/rpp/100-120/rpp108.aspx

Model Law against the Smuggling of Migrants; http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/Model_Law_Smuggling_of_Migrants_10-52715_Ebook.pdf

Internet access including access to WATTLE for supplementary materials.

The course will be taught by Fiona David.

Fiona is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International and Public Law at the ANU College of Law.

Fiona has worked on transnational crime issues, particularly migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons, in Australia, South East Asia and Africa with a range of agencies including the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, the International Organization for Migration, the Australian Institute of Criminology and AusAID.  

Fiona is the author of numerous publications on people trafficking and she was the Principal Drafter of the UNODC Model Law on the Smuggling of Migrants.  Fiona is co-authoring a book on the International Law of Migrant Smuggling with Dr Anne Gallagher.