Transnational Law: Forced Labor Colloquium
This seminar explores forced labor with a particular focus on the domestic and international legal and policy frameworks that govern labor recruitment practices. Students will engage with scholarly work, case studies, and advocacy reports to evaluate how labor recruitment systems operate — and how they often enable coercion, deception, and exploitation. The course is organized around the 2025 Transnational Law Symposium, scheduled for November 7-8, which will bring together globally recognized scholars, advocates, and policymakers to set baselines and debate possible reforms. This year’s Symposium will examine unfair recruitment practices across a range of sectors where abuse has been all too common, including construction, electronics, nursing, temporary agricultural labor, and even sports. Students will work closely with these experts and will formulate a set of normative and policy guidelines for the field, drawing on the semester’s work and the outcomes of the Symposium.