Human Trafficking and Legal Culture in Latin America: A nested socio-legal comparative study

This research project will comprehensively address the nuances and interpretations of anti-trafficking provisions in Latin America in regional and comparative perspective. Through the lens of legal culture, the project will identify patterns and trends in anti-trafficking laws, analysed in conjunction with meaning-making factors.
To develop a contemporary contextual understanding of human trafficking in Latin America as constructed and shaped by legal culture, this research project will address the core research question: How have legal cultures in Latin American countries shaped the understanding, domestication, and application of the anti-trafficking laws?
This research will address three sub-questions:
1. How has the international prohibition of trafficking been domesticated in Latin America?
2. How have legal cultures shaped the design and application of anti-trafficking provisions in Latin
America?
3. What other factors have shaped the design and application of anti-trafficking provisions in Latin
America?

The project will employ a mixed methods nested analysis operating at three scales: global, regional, and national. The project will be divided into three research streams representing these different scales, with learnings from each scale informing and reforming analysis across the others.
1. Global secondary data analysis will take advantage of new and established international quantitative datasets relevant to the domestication of the anti-trafficking prohibition. This includes datasets such as the Global Slavery Index (Walk Free Foundation) and the Antislavery in Domestic Legislation (Schwarz & Allain, 2020) and others. This stream will identify potential explanatory factors linked to political, historical, economic, and cultural contexts, to form a quantitative evidence base for statistical analysis of factors related to the design and implementation of anti-trafficking laws.
2. Regional doctrinal and empirical analysis will consider the regional legal context of Latin America, interrogating the translation of international anti-trafficking norms in Inter-American human rights law. Doctrinal and qualitative methods will be employed to examine legal texts and cases before both the Inter-American Commission and the Court through the lens of legal culture, seeking to understand the contextual meaning-making factors underpinning the law's design and interpretation. Regional legal analysis will also include comparative consideration of anti-trafficking law across Latin America, drawing additional quantitative and qualitative evidence into the interrogation delivered in research stream (1) and considering the interplay between the regional system and domestic laws.
3. National case studies in two Latin American countries will deliver a close examination of legal culture in context, and how this shapes the design and implementation of anti-trafficking laws. The national case studies-to be selected based on a defined case selection framework driven by preliminary data analysis-will identify and map meaning-making factors, characteristics, and underlying values and principles of the legal system to understand how they shape anti-trafficking laws. Primary data collection is expected to include semi-structured key informant interviews and surveys with policymakers and practitioners but may also employ other qualitative and mixed methods.