Il concetto di sfruttamento nell'immaginario giuridico. Un'ermeneutica per ripensare lo sfruttamento lavorativo nell'ordinamento italiano

The thesis proposes a reconfiguration of the Italian legal categories of labour exploitation, in particular trafficking in persons (for the purpose of labour exploitation) and illicit intermediation for the purpose of labour exploitation (also known as “caporalato”). The aim is to show how the representation of the criminal phenomenon in the social imaginary can affect the interpretation of the criminal disposition. The first Chapter addresses the topic of exploitation starting from the theoretical investigation of the concept of exploitation, which is partly "pre-legal," partly jus-philosophical, in order to understand which currents of thought have contributed to delineate this concept in the collective imagination and how it has influenced (and influences) the legal discourse on exploitation and, in particular, labour exploitation. Chapter Two offers a detailed analysis of the supranational and national legal framework to identify the concept of exploitation adopted by the law and the normative definition of exploitation. In doing so, this research examines the main international legal texts of Western tradition, European and national legal texts in which the term "exploitation" appears. The third Chapter envisages the realization of a new "stage" in the path of progressive strengthening the protection of vulnerable workers, proposing the reconfiguration of “caporalato” as a form of labour trafficking. The first Section adopts a purely technical-legal exegetical lens, proposing a comparison of the Articles 601 and 603-bis of the Italian Criminal Code. The second Section corroborates this reconstruction by comparing the two phenomena from a phenomenological and sociological point of view, through the international soft law produced by the main expert organizations on trafficking in persons. Finally, the Section analyses the impact of new technologies on the two criminal dispositions (e-trafficking and platform labour exploitation). The fourth Chapter reconstructs the national case-law, both of the judges and of the Public Prosecutor's Offices. The analysis reveals a national judicial trend that tends to exclude the use of the trafficking in persons offence in relation to labour exploitation. The conclusions deconstruct the “image” of the crime of trafficking in persons and of “caporalato” in order to propose a new interpretation of both crimes.