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Author	Prof Ashgar Ali Ali Mohamed
Organisation/Institution	Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Faculty of Law, Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali
Country	MALAYSIA
Panel	Labor and Employment Law
Title	ASEAN’s Legal Response to Human Trafficking: Arresting the Crime through Harmonisation and Cooperation
Abstract	Human trafficking is increasingly becoming a critical challenge for many countries across the globe. It poses a direct threat to national sovereignty, social stability, and the integrity of domestic legal systems, irrespective of whether the affected countries share land borders or are separated by sea. Despite numerous efforts undertaken at the national, regional, and international levels, the incidence of human trafficking continues to rise rather than decline. This disturbing trend raises serious concerns, particularly in jurisdictions where forced labour, servitude, and slavery-like practices have long been criminalised and strictly prohibited. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the phenomenon of transborder human trafficking and evaluates the extent to which cooperation among neighbouring countries can contribute to effectively combating this crime. In particular, the discussion focuses on the role of enhanced regional collaboration within ASEAN, and how such cooperation can either eradicate human trafficking or, at the very least, reduce it to a more manageable level. In the course of the analysis, reference will be made to the existing legal frameworks of the relevant jurisdictions with a view to assessing how these laws may be strengthened in line with cooperative mechanisms aimed at effectively addressing the central theme of this paper.
Biography	Ashgar Ali Ali Mohamed (Dato’ Sri Dr) is a Professor at the Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Faculty of Law, Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA)Brunei Darussalam. He graduated with Bachelor of Laws (LLB (Hons)) and Master of Comparative Laws (MCL) from IIUM, Master of Laws (LLM (Hons)) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the Graduate School of Management, University Putra Malaysia. He was admitted to the Malaysian Bar as an advocate and solicitor by the High Court of Malaya in 1992. His areas of interest include Employment Law, Civil Litigation, and Alternative Dispute Resolution. He has authored several books on the above subjects and published numerous articles both in local and international journals/reports. Furthermore, he has presented papers on the abovementioned areas at various international and local conferences.