Sex and the limits of enlightenment: The irrationality of legal regimes to control prostitution

Designing Prostitution Policy : Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade

“…Several scholars argue that the shape of the sex trade is not so much influenced by public policy as by external determinants such as 'rapid and large-scale economic and cultural transformations' (Bernstein, 2007, p 168;Agustín, 2008). These authors urge us to see prostitution as 'sex labour' and thereby as one manifestation of profound changes in the nature, diversity and spatial location of service work in general.…”

“…This perspective on prostitution policy is borne out for example in Outshoorn's analysis of the national parliamentary debates that resulted in the decision to legalise the commercial exploitation of prostitution in the Netherlands, and her subsequent analysis of the changes that resulted in a proposal for, and subsequent defeat of, a new repressive national prostitution law of 2010 (Outshoorn, 2004a;. There is considerable debate about the type and proper nomenclature of the different regimes (Agustín, 2008;Phoenix, 2009;Abel et al, 2010;Chuang, 2010;Scoular, 2010), but that need not concern us here.…”

Designing prostitution policy

“…Extraneous forces. Several scholars argue that the shape of the sex trade is not so much influenced by public policy as by external determinants such as 'rapid and large-scale economic and cultural transformations' (Bernstein, 2007, p 168;Agustín, 2008). These authors urge us to see prostitution as 'sex labour' and thereby as one manifestation of profound changes in the nature, diversity and spatial location of service work in general.…”

Rethinking the ‘international law of crime’: provocations from transnational legal studies

“…103 Worse still, the lack of a sophisticated legal vocabulary on policy questions and an account of the dynamic interactions between criminal law and other sets of legal rules in any given sector 104 leads social scientists unfamiliar with the nuances of law and legal theory to declare the law irrelevant! 105 For TCL lawyers undertaking such comparative work, the transnational legal 'hook' is likely to vary in intensity. The three examples we consider briefly relate to a widely ratified international legal instrument (trafficking), a weakly ratified legal instrument (sex work), and a case where no suppression treaty exists (domestic violence).…”