The convention was amended by the protocol entering into force on 7 July 1955. Participants Īs of 2013, there are 99 countries that have signed, acceded to, ratified, succeeded to, or otherwise committed to participation in the conventions as amended, and its subsequent protocol. The parties undertook to promulgate severe penalties for slave trading, slaveholding, and enslavement. The parties agreed to prevent and suppress the slave trade and to progressively bring about the complete elimination of slavery in all its forms. The status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercisedĪll acts involved in the capture, acquisition or disposal of a person with intent to reduce him to slavery all acts involved in the acquisition of a slave with a view to selling or exchanging him all acts of disposal by sale or exchange of a slave acquired with a view to being sold or exchanged, and, in general, every act of trade or transport in slaves. The convention established concrete rules and articles to advance the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. The commission was mixed in composition including former colonial governors, as well as a Haitian, and a representative from the International Labour Organization, Frederick Lugard, was the British representative on the commission. It was supplemented and revised by the Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, signed by the Allied Powers of the First World War on 10 September 1919, in which the signatories undertook to "endeavour to secure the complete suppression of slavery in all its forms and of the slave trade by land and sea" (Article 11).Ī Temporary Slavery Commission was appointed by the Council of the League of Nations in June 1924. In the Brussels Conference Act of 1890, the signatories "declared that they were equally animated by the firm intention of putting an end to the traffic in African slaves".