The United States as Global Sheriff: Using Unilateral Sanctions to Combat Human Trafficking

By situating the U.S. rise to dominance in historical and political context, this Article underscores the significance of U.S. unilateralism for international anti-trafficking law and policy

Brief of Human Rights and Labor Rights Organizations and Experts as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners

Since Congress first enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, it has expanded and strengthened it through successive reauthorizations. Congress has broadened the scope of the TVPRA in order to impose criminal and civil liability on individuals, corporations, and other legal persons who use, or knowingly benefit from ventures that use, forced labor, as well as those who aid and abet these practices. Through this legislation, Congress has bolstered efforts to hold traffickers accountable, opening the courthouse doors to victims of these egregious crimes. The Ninth Circuit\u27s decision below undermined the very statutory scheme Congress put in place to combat forced labor by restrictively interpreting due process requirements and finding respondents were beyond the reach of the statute. The court\u27s decision not only misapplies the law of this Court and conflicts with other Courts of Appeals, but it seriously impairs the TVPRA and Congress\u27s efforts to fight against human trafficking and forced labor. Because the court\u27s decision is wrong and will significantly compromise the enforcement and intended purpose of the TVPRA, the following organizations respectfully submit this brief as amici curiae in support of petitioners. Janie Chuang is a Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. Professor Chuang teaches and writes about issues relating to human trafficking, labor migration, and global governance

Preventing Trafficking Through New Global Governance over Labor Migration

This Article offers initial thoughts on the possible impacts the GCM might have on global efforts to prevent and address trafficking, focusing on the newly elevated role of the IOM in this endeavor. Based on arguments I have made elsewhere, my analysis takes as a given that a normative, rights-based approach to migrant work is necessary to prevent migrant worker exploitation and abuse from escalating into trafficking. From that perspective, the Article explores the possibility that, in advising States on GCM implementation, the IOM could take a more proactive role in advancing workers’ rights in furtherance of the longer-term goal of preventing trafficking. Part I assesses the GCM’s potential for advancing the rights of migrant workers. The GCM reflects the three competing interests that typically animate migration policy: (1) concerns over border security, (2) the desire to derive labor market benefits from economic migration, and (3) the imperative to protect migrants’ rights. Whether and to what extent migrant workers are sufficiently protected against exploitation will turn on how States balance these competing concerns. Empowered to guide States in their efforts to implement the GCM, the IOM will play a crucial role in helping to translate GCM norms into State practice. Part II analyzes the IOM’s operational history and structure for insights into how the IOM might balance the GCM’s competing concerns in its efforts to advise States on GCM implementation. The IOM’s checkered history and its unique status as a non-normative, U.N.-related organization show a tendency to prioritize States’ concerns over border security and labor market access above those regarding migrant welfare. In contrast, the IOM’s recent efforts to promote ethical recruitment standards suggest the possibility of IOM assuming a more proactive stance towards migrant workers’ rights protections going forward. Part III explores these efforts, situating them within broader development debates over whether and to what extent rights tradeoffs are necessary—or acceptable—to maximize the development gains from migration. In advising States on GCM implementation, how IOM responds to pressures to trade rights for labor market access will surely test IOM’s professed commitment to ethical recruitment frameworks. Its response could prove to be a bellwether of IOM’s broader approach to balancing migrant worker welfare interests against the GCM’s other competing interests in border security and labor market access. In this environment, close scrutiny and strong advocacy by rights advocates will be necessary to fully realize the GCM’s—and the IOM’s—potential to advance migrant workers’ rights and prevent trafficking

Look, the World is Watching How We Treat Migrants! The Making of the Anti-Trafficking Legislation during the Ma Administration

Employing the spiral model, this research analyses how anti-human trafficking legislation was promulgated during the Ma Ying-jeou (Ma Yingjiu) presidency. This research found that the gov- ernment of Taiwan was just as accountable for the violation of mi- grants’ human rights as the exploitive placement agencies and abusive employers. This research argues that, given its reliance on the United States for political and security support, Taiwan has made great ef- forts to improve its human rights records and meet US standards for protecting human rights. The reform was a result of multilevel inputs, including US pressure and collaboration between transnational and domestic advocacy groups. A major contribution of this research is to challenge the belief that human rights protection is intrinsic to dem- ocracy. In the same light, this research also cautions against Taiwan’s subscription to US norms since the reform was achieved at the cost of stereotyping trafficking victimhood, legitimising state surveillance, and further marginalising sex workers

Trafficking in Women: The United States as Global Sheriff?

Janie Chuang, Presentation, Trafficking in Women: The United States as Global Sheriff? (University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, Annual Feminism and Law Seminar, Toronto, Can., Mar. 30, 2004)

Using Global Migration Law to Prevent Human Trafficking

Our understanding of human trafficking has changed significantly since 2000, when the international community adopted the first modern antitrafficking treaty-the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Trafficking Protocol).\u27 Policy attention has expanded beyond a near-exclusive focus on sex trafficking to bring long-overdue attention to nonsexual labor trafficking. That attention has helped surface how the lack of international laws and institutions pertaining to labor migration can enable-if not encourage -the exploitation of migrant workers. Many migrant workers throughout the world labor under conditions that do not qualify as trafficking yet suffer significant rights violations for which access to protection and redress is limited. Failing to attend to these lesser abuses creates and sustains vulnerability to trafficking

Giving as Governance: Philanthrocapitalism and Modern-Day Slavery Abolitionism

This Essay examines the potential influence of a new breed of actor in the global antitrafficking arena: the venture philanthropist, or philanthrocapitalist. Philanthrocapitalists have already helped rebrand trafficking as modern-day slavery, and have expressed their ambitions to lead global efforts to eradicate the problem. With their deep financial resources and access to powerful networks, philanthrocapitalists hold tremendous power to shape the future trajectory of the antitrafficking movement. this Essay warns, however, against the possibility that philanthrocapitalists could also reconfigure the landscape of global antitrafficking policymaking, marginalizing or even displacing other actors\u27 efforts to address the problem