Recent media reports have highlighted the incidence of slavery, sexual exploitation and human rights violations amongst agricultural workers in Italy, and especially in Sicily.
The phenomenon affects Italian, EU and third country agricultural workers. The individuals responsible for the violations are often the owners or managers of these farms, and are in theory candidates for receiving CAP funding (Common Agricultural Policy) from the EU. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) provides financial support to farmers all over the EU. The policy has undergone a process of evolution and amendment throughout the years, with the recent most significant ones in the mid-1990s and, in 2003, the Fisher reforms. These introduced the concept of cross-compliance, whereby farmers have to guarantee compliance with public health, animal and plant health, the environment and animal welfare, in order to qualify for the Single Farm Payment (SFP). There are no cross-compliance requirements that enjoin farmers to abide by fundamental rights, labour rights and other human rights obligations derived from national, EU or international law. In my paper, I explore the feasibility of amending the cross-compliance rules for CAP funding to include human and labour rights.

Workshop 1 - Sesscion 1D: Human Rights, Harding Moot Room