Symposium on framing global migration law-part III migrant domestic workers and continuums of exploitation: Beyond the limits of antitrafficking laws

Recent years have witnessed the expansion of human rights standards relating to migrant domestic workers. This includes, in particular, the adoption of the 2011 International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (no. 189), General Comments from UN human rights treaty bodies, and an expanding body of case law in domestic and regional courts. Migrant domestic workers have played central roles in these cases, engaging in the public sphere to advocate for law reform, and, in doing so, gradually expanding the field of global migration law. This essay describes the emerging recognition evident in the approaches of UN human rights treaty bodies that axes of discrimination intersect and, in particular, that migration status and gender can be significant to the enjoyment of rights. This integrated approach is evident in the case law of international human rights bodies adjudicating the rights claims advanced by migrant domestic workers. The case law on Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) shows the potential for such integrated approaches to move beyond the usual fragmentation of human rights, labor, and migration laws, but that potential remains limited.