Human Rights Law Commons^™

Blurred Lines Or Bright Line? Addressing The Demand For Sex Trafficking Under California Law, Rachel N. Busick

Pepperdine Law Review

Like the Thirteenth Amendment, which made slavery punishable by law, additional statutes that protect victims and punish those involved in sex trafficking are needed in the United States to abolish modern-day slavery. This Comment focuses specifically on California's laws relating to sex trafficking for two reasons. First, California's laws fail to adequately address the demand for sex trafficking. Second, California has a unique relationship to pornography, which is intrinsically linked to sex trafficking. Part II explains the definition and realities of sex trafficking with a special focus on buyers creating demand for sex trafficking. Part III discusses the current state …

From Freedom Narrative To Freedom Leadership Narrative, Michael E. Battle

Freedom Center Journal

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center enters its second decade excited about the opportunities and challenges of balancing the focus on the historical realities of the antebellum freedom narratives and the modem day freedom narratives unfolding in the stories of millions of people worldwide who seek to be free. In terms of the rewards of freedom, The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center focuses on the development of freedom leadership which seeks to empower emerging freedom heroes to fully understand the meaning and application of freedom. Entering its second decade of presence and purpose, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center sees …

Slavery, Property, And Marshall In The Positivist Legal Tradition, Marc L. Roark

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

To Seek And Save The Lost: Human Trafficking And Salvation Schemas Among American Evangelicals, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

American evangelicals have a history of engagement in social issues in general and anti-slavery activism in particular. The last 10 years have seen an increase in both scholarly attention to evangelicalism and evangelical focus on contemporary forms of slavery. Extant literature on this engagement often lacks the voices of evangelicals themselves. This study begins to fill this gap through a qualitative exploration of how evangelical and mainline churchgoers conceptualize both the issue of human trafficking and possible solutions. I extend Michael Young's recent work on the confessional schema motivating evangelical abolitionists in the 1830s. Through analysis of open-ended responses to …

Men, Women And Children For Sale: The Dichotomy Of Human Trafficking In The United States And Abroad, Elizabeth Kolbe

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Living in Thailand in 2005 opened my eyes to the real plight of exploited peoples around the world. I was able to experience first-hand the economic and social issues facing potential victims of human trafficking. According to Anti-Slavery International, there are an estimated 200 million people being held in slavery worldwide. Approximately 800,000 people per year are being trafficked across international borders and forced into slavery. Like most Americans, I believed this is a horrible problem facing only people of developing countries. Last year I heard Chong Kim describe her traumatizing experience of being trafficked within the United States. Over …

Slides: “Human Sustainability” In Natural Resources Industries: The New Frontier In Compliance, Social Responsibility, Disclosure, And Transparency, T. Markus Funk

Natural Resource Industries and the Sustainability Challenge (Martz Winter Symposium, February 27-28)

Presenter: T. Markus Funk, Partner, Perkins Coie

21 slides

Under Color Of Law: Siliadin V. France And The Dynamics Of Enslavement In Historical Perspective, Rebecca J. Scott

Book Chapters

When is it appropriate to apply the term ‘slavery’—a concept that appears to rest on a property right—to patterns of exploitation in contemporary society, when no state extends formal recognition to the possibility of the ownership of property in a human being? Historians, who generally position themselves as enemies of anachronism, may be particularly resistant to the use of an ancient term to describe a twenty-first century reality. And jurists have often been understandably reluctant to employ a word whose historical meaning was so closely tied to a specific property relationship that has long since been abolished in Europe and …

When Federal And State Systems Converge: Foreign National Human Trafficking Victims Within Juvenile And Family Courts, Bridgette A. Carr

Articles

This article highlights the concerns facing foreign national children who are both victims of human trafficking and under the jurisdiction of juvenile and family courts. Human trafficking is modern day slavery in which individuals, including children, are compelled into service and exploited. Foreign national human trafficking victims in juvenile and family court systems must navigate both the state system and a complex federal immigration system. This article explains the federal benefits available to these children and identifies the best practice approaches for juvenile and family court systems to increase identification of and support for foreign national child trafficking victims.jfcj_1073

Defining The Badges And Incidents Of Slavery, Jennifer Mason Mcaward

Journal Articles

Most agree that Section Two of the Thirteenth Amendment empowers Congress to legislate regarding the “badges and incidents of slavery.” Few, however, have explored in depth the precise meaning of this concept. The goal of this Article is to provide a historical and conceptual framework for interpreting and identifying the badges and incidents of slavery. It examines the original public meaning of the terms “badge of slavery” and “incident of slavery” as well as how the “badges and incidents” concept has been incorporated into and used in Thirteenth Amendment jurisprudence. It considers several analytical variables from historical, jurisprudential, and policy …

The Slavery And Involuntary Servitude Of Immigrant Workers: Two Sides Of The Same Coin, Maria L. Ontiveros

Schmooze 'tickets'

No abstract provided.

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 …

Introduction To Special Symposium Feature: Successes And Failures In International Human Trafficking Law, Bridgette A. Carr

Articles

The Essays in this issue of the Michigan Journal of International Law showcase the results of an important and historic symposium held at the University of Michigan Law School in February 2011. Acknowledging the ten-year anniversary of both the international Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Trafficking Protocol), and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in the United States, the conference brought together an extraordinary group of legal scholars, government officials, and practitioners to examine the successes and failures in international human trafficking law. The need to evaluate both the successes and failures in antitrafficking law is …

Slavery And The Law In Atlantic Perspective: Jurisdiction, Jurisprudence, And Justice, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

The four articles in this special issue experiment with an innovative set of questions and a variety of methods in order to push the analysis of slavery and the law into new territory. Their scope is broadly Atlantic, encompassing Suriname and Saint-Domingue/Haiti, New York and New Orleans, port cities and coffee plantations. Each essay deals with named individuals in complex circumstances, conveying their predicaments as fine-grained microhistories rather than as shocking anecdotes. Each author, moreover, demonstrates that the moments when law engaged slavery not only reflected but also influenced larger dynamics of sovereignty and jurisprudence.

Paper Thin: Freedom And Re-Enslavement In The Diaspora Of The Haitian Revolution, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

In the summer of 1809 a flotilla of boats arrived in New Orleans carrying more than 9,000 Saint-Domingue refugees recently expelled from the Spanish colony of Cuba. These migrants nearly doubled the population of New Orleans, renewing its Francophone character and populating the neighborhoods of the Vieux Carre and Faubourg Marigny. At the heart of the story of their disembarkation, however, is a legal puzzle. Historians generally tell us that the arriving refugees numbered 2,731 whites, 3,102 free people of color, and 3,226 slaves. But slavery had been abolished in Saint-Domingue by decree in 1793, and abolition had been ratified …

Ten Years After The Palermo Protocol: Where Are Protections For Human Trafficking?, Kelly Hyland Heinrich

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Exploring Animal Rights As An Imperative For Human Welfare, Stephen A. Plass

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rawls And Reparations, Martin D. Carcieri

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In the past two years, four related events have sharpened debates on race in the U.S.: President Obama's election, the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, that Court's ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano, and the arrest of Obama's friend, Harvard professor Henry Gates. The President has spoken of a "teaching moment" arising from these events. Moreover, his writings, speeches and lawmaking efforts illustrate the contractual nature of Obama's thinking. The President (and all concerned citizens) should thus find useful an analysis of racial policy and justice in light of the work of John Rauls. Rawls may …

Relocation Revisited: Sex Trafficking Of Native Women In The United States, Sarah Deer

Faculty Scholarship

The Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) signaled a comprehensive campaign by the United States (US) government to address the scourge of human trafficking in the US and abroad. The US rhetoric about sex trafficking suggests that the problem originates in foreign countries and/or is recent problem. Neither claim is correct. This article details the historical and legal context of sex trafficking from its origin among the colonial predecessors of the US and documents the commercial trafficking of Native women over several centuries. Native women have experienced generations of enslavement, exploitation, exportation, and relocation. Human trafficking is not just …

Sex And Slavery: An Analysis Of Three Models Of State Human Trafficking Legislation, Melynda H. Barnhart

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Henry J. Richardson Iii, The Origins Of African-American Interests In International Law, D. A. Jeremy Telman

Law Faculty Publications

This short review evaluates Professor Richardson's book both as a contribution to the history of the Atlantic slave trade and as contribution to critical race theory.

Professor Richardson has read innumerable historical monographs, works of legal and sociological theory, international law and critical race theory. Armed with this store of knowledge, he is able to recount a detailed narrative of African-American claims to, interests in and appeals to international law over approximately two centuries spanning, with occasional peeks both forward and backward in time, from the landing of the first African slaves at Jamestown in 1619 to the 1815 Treaty …

Joyce Apsel On To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories By Today's Slaves. Edited By Kevin Bales And Zoe Trodd (Ithaca, Ny: Cornell University Press, 2008). 260pp., Joyce Apsel

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today's Slaves. Edited by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008). 260pp.

She...Refuses To Deliver Up Herself As The Slave Of Your Petitioner': Émigrés, Enslavement, And The 1808 Louisiana Digest Of The Civil Laws (Symposium On The Bicentennial Of The Digest Of 1808--Collected Papers), Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

Philosophically and juridically, the construct of a slave-a "person with a price"--contains multiple ambiguities. Placing the category of slave among the distinctions of persons "established by law," the 1808 Digest of the Civil Laws Now in Force in the Termtoiy of Orleans recognized that "slave" is not a natural category, inhering in human beings. It is an agreement among other human beings to treat one of their fellows as property. But the Digest did not specify how such a property right came into existence in a given instance. The definition of a slave was simply ostensive, pointing toward rather than …

Reinventar La Esclavitud, Garantizar La Libertad: De Saint-Domingue A Santiago A Nueva Orleáns, 1803-1809, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

From French and Creole to Spanish, the domain of the Napoleonic Empire to the king of Spain, crossing the strait separating the French colony of Saint-Domingue and the Spanish colony of Cuba entailed a change of language and government. Some 18,000 people made that transition between the spring and summer of 1803 during the Revolutionary War in Saint-Dominque. Six years later, many crossed the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba to New Orleans and the recently acquired Louisiana Territory under the authority of a territorial governor and the United States Congress. What would these crossings lead to for those who had …

April Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“A World Enslaved" by E. Benjamin Skinner. Foreign Policy (March/April) 2008.

Forget Me Not: Bodies As Last Colonies Of Capitalism?, Anna M. Agathangelou

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Slavery is one technology of imperialism that serves to generate more profits worldwide. Skinner brings this issue to our attention, arguing that many people think that slavery ended in the 19th century, but the current turning of peoples into slaves proves otherwise. Skinner points out that since 1817, there have been more than a dozen international conventions signed banning the slave trade and yet, the number of people sold as slaves is in the millions. He calls modern day slavery a “monstrous crime” and proceeds to provide us with insights from his research. He begins making his point through what …

Slavery: From Public Crime To Private Wrong, Alison Brysk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The fight against slavery was the first international human rights movement, and the elimination of legalized bondage represented a hallmark of Western civilization. But the persistence and revival of this ancient evil shows that in an era of globalization, a prohibited public crime has morphed into a massive private wrong.

Combating The Slave Trade: Why Governments Are Not Good At Governing, Eric A. Heinze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

It is difficult to read Benjamin Skinner’s revealing piece on the international slave trade and not feel revolted that we still live in a world where so many people live in bondage. What is particularly disturbing is that much of the modern-day slave trade takes place with the full knowledge, and even acquiescence of, state governments.

Slavery And "Abuse Regeneration", Christine Bell

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Skinner’s depiction of modern day slavery is graphic and challenging. Anyone viewing prohibitions on slavery, or abolition, as historical anachronism, or requiring reinterpretation for modern-day practices, must think again. Skinner persuades us that slavery in its most old fashioned sense is alive and well and, worse than that–on the rise.

Human Rights And Contemporary Slavery, Kevin Bales

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The anti-slavery movement will welcome this important compilation of work on debt bondage slavery. In the academic and policy analysis of contemporary slavery, many of the fundamental areas of enslavement are yet to be explored and brought into systematic presentation. This work by the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver helps to build up our understanding of debt bondage, as well as adding to the emerging discipline of contemporary slavery studies. Debt bondage slavery is one of the oldest forms of slavery that continues into the present day. The date of the establishment of hereditary debt …