News

On 8 April 2025, Nuffield Professorial Fellow Andrew Thompson CBE, Professor of Global and Imperial History, participated in the launch of the report by the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking at the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York. Global Commission Chair and former British Prime Minister Baroness Theresa May of Maidenhead has led the initiative, under the sponsorship of the British and Bahrain governments.

The aim of the specific chapter Professor Thompson and his research team drafted was to call upon governments, International Organisations (IOs), and civil society organisations to pay greater attention to the problem of modern slavery and human trafficking, and devote greater resources and strategic efforts to eradicate these crimes. The chapter drew from a wide body of information collected in interviews with the senior executive officials of leading IOs and international NGOs (INGOs), and in special regional engagements with the representatives of nearly 40 civil society organisations across 24 countries.

While drafting the chapter, Professor Thompson relied on the assistance of Nuffield Associate Member Dr Cesare Vagge. Mike Adamson CBE, former CEO of the British Red Cross and former Acting Director of the Global Commission, played a significant role in framing the chapter’s assessment of current global humanitarian responses to modern slavery and human trafficking, notably by IOs and INGOs.

Whilst drafting and gathering the necessary information for the report, Professor Thompson chaired and counted on the support of the Commission’s 'Civil Society Working Group', whose members were carefully selected among survivors, UN officials, humanitarian leaders, human rights activists, and academics. These included Nuffield Professorial Fellow Lucie Cluver.

Alongside the report, the Civil Society Working Group also launched the Global Commission’s Prevention Framework on modern slavery and human trafficking, a tool of analysis conceived to identify the general and specific risk factors that determine individual and collective vulnerability to modern slavery and human trafficking. Informed by over fifty reports and articles published by academic journals, IOs and INGOs – as well as by the civil society organisations that the working group engaged with – the Prevention Framework was a collective effort, which particularly owes its completion to Prof. Thompson and co-authors Dr. Cesare Vagge and Nuffield DPhil candidate Marly Tirbucio-Carneiro.

The contribution made by Professor Thompson and other Nuffield-affiliated scholars to the initiatives of the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking reconfirms the college’s profile as a catalyst for cooperation between academia, policy-makers and civil society to tackle pressing global challenges.

More information about the report can be found on the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking's website.