PROTEX Case Law Dataset

The PROTEX Case Law Dataset was compiled as part of the research project ‘PROTect against EXploitation: exploitative offences versus legitimate work in a digitalised labour market’ (PROTEX), hosted at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of Luxembourg. The project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Grant Agreement No. 101081455. The dataset brings together judicial decisions relating to human trafficking and related exploitation offences from publicly accessible national case law databases in four European jurisdictions: Belgium: Cour de cassation and the case law database maintained by Myria (the Belgian Federal Migration Centre); France: Légifrance; Luxembourg: La Justice; Spain: CENDOJ (Centro de Documentación Judicial). Cases were identified through manual searches using keywords associated with human trafficking and related forms of exploitation, including the names of offences and references to relevant statutory provisions. The Belgian collection predominantly concerns human trafficking cases, as the Myria database specifically compiles jurisprudence relating to this offence. The Spanish collection additionally includes labour law decisions concerning sex work. The dataset covers at least the period 2013-2023, although the temporal coverage has been extended and updated for certain jurisdictions and offence categories. Several limitations should be noted. First, the scope of the dataset varies by country due to differences in data availability and the volume of published decisions. In particular, the collection is limited to: Supreme Court and appellate court decisions in Belgium, due to the quantity of available data; Supreme Court decisions in France, as lower court decisions are not accessible; Supreme Court decisions in Spain, due to the quantity of available data. Second, the completeness of the dataset depends on the availability and coverage of the original public databases. In many jurisdictions, the online publication of judicial decisions is not mandatory. Furthermore, because case law databases generally lack dedicated metadata identifying cases related to human trafficking or exploitation offences, some relevant decisions may not have been identified through manual keyword searches. For easier consultation and navigation, the dataset is also available in a more user-friendly format through the public PROTEX Zotero library linked below. The dataset is organised by country and court level, with individual decisions further tagged according to the offence(s) involved.