Law Commons^™

Trafficking In Europe: An Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of European Law, Saadiya Chaudary

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Essay looks at the manifestation of various forms of human trafficking within Europe and analyzes the effectiveness of current European law provisions in combating trafficking and protecting victims. The Essay will accomplish this by examining recent and current cases before the European Court of Human Rights and the comparative gap between European standards and domestic procedures in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is a well-known destination state for trafficking victims' and consequently is required to meet obligations under international law toward a significant number of individuals who have been forced into exploitation in the United Kingdom.

Human Rights Legislation In The Arab World: The Case Of Human Trafficking, Mohamed Y. Mattar

Michigan Journal of International Law

In the Arab World, human rights legislation has not always enhanced human rights. In fact, many national laws have been adopted that restrict human rights. Some countries' laws regulating nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) do not allow NGOs to receive funding from foreign entities. Media laws impose various limitations on the press. Jordan is the only Arab nation to enforce a comprehensive law on combating violence against women. Jordan is also the only country that has a law on access to information. Despite these gaps in human rights legislation, many Arab countries have passed comprehensive laws to combat human trafficking since the …

Liberal Legal Norms Meet Collective Criminality, John D. Ciorciari

Michigan Law Review

International criminal law ("ICL") tends to focus on the same question asked by the Cambodian survivor above: who was ultimately most responsible? Focusing on the culpability of senior leaders has powerful appeal. It resonates with a natural human tendency to personify misdeeds and identify a primary locus for moral blame. It also serves political ends by putting a face on mass crimes, decapitating the old regime, and leaving room for reconciliation at lower levels. But what happens when smoking guns do not point clearly toward high-ranking officials? And how can the law address the fact that most atrocities are committed …

Exporting Subjects: Globalizing Family Law Progress Through International Human Rights, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Michigan Journal of International Law

In our popular culture and social consciousness, women are no longer the second-class citizens they used to be. Magazines, television advertisements, and billboards featuring women show us how we have achieved independence, wealth, desirability, and our intelligence. We are no longer the supporting role in movies and entertainment but stars in our own right. For this, we can thank both changing society and the unrelenting work of many women who refused to bring the coffee for the boss. The women's movement in the United States has made large gains for women through the use of social activism and legal action. …

An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton

Michigan Journal of International Law

The responsibility to protect, from its recent nativity in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is the latest round in an old debate pitting the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of states against allowing such intervention to prevent gross and systematic violations of human rights. Advocates for the concept see it as an important new commitment by the international community, injecting new meaning into the tragically threadbare promise to never again allow mass atrocities to occur unchallenged. ICISS offered the concept of responsibility to protect as a new way to confront …

Coercion's Common Threads: Addressing Vagueness In The Federal Criminal Prohibitions On Torture By Looking To State Domestic Violence Laws, Sarah H. St. Vincent

Michigan Law Review

Under international law, the United States is obligated to criminalize acts of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. However, the federal criminal torture laws employ several terms whose meanings are so indeterminate that they inhibit the statutes' effectiveness and fail to provide adequate guidance regarding precisely which forms of mistreatment may result in prosecution. These ambiguous terms have given rise to serious and prolonged controversies within the executive branch regarding what torture is-controversies that confirm, and may further compound, the uncertainty of liability under the laws in question.

In order to solve this problem of vagueness and provide definitive …

Successes And Failures In International Human Trafficking Law, Luis Cdebaca

Michigan Journal of International Law

Professor Carr yesterday remarked that human trafficking is too often discussed only in theoretical or academic ways. I've spent most of my career in the field, where interactions with victims, traffickers, and defense attorneys are anything but theoretical. But as keynote speaker for an academic symposium this morning, I'm going to try to lay out a bit of the conceptual state of play from my current vantage point. The title of this symposium, "Successes and Failures in International Human Trafficking Law," is a bit binary. Perhaps, in the best diplomatic tradition, we can temper that to "Limitations and Opportunities in …

Widening Our Lens: Incorporating Essential Perspectives In The Fight Against Human Trafficking, Jonathan Todres

Michigan Journal of International Law

In 2000, the international community formally launched the modern movement to combat human trafficking with the United Nations' adoption of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (Trafficking Protocol). With the Trafficking Protocol, the international community created a new cornerstone upon which to build a global initiative to combat this modem form of slavery. As the first major international treaty on human trafficking in half a century, the Trafficking Protocol represented a significant step forward. One hundred forty-seven countries are now party to the …