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Abstract:
Organized crime rings exploit 700,000 to 4 million new victims of human trafficking each year, often luring them across borders where they are more vulnerable to abuse. Trafficking in Southeastern Europe is a relatively new phenomenon, fueled by the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, as well as the presence of international peacekeepers who have sometimes exacerbated the problem. Both domestic and international anti-trafficking laws, by virtue of their nature as government created legislation, focus largely on a law enforcement agenda, failing to adequately addresess immigration options that could serve to protect the victim and in so doing provide better evidence with which to prosecute the traffickers for their crimes.

international law, human trafficking, comparative law, human rights law

Abstract:
The article outlines the myriad problems that need be addressed to carry out the promise of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act. In the year 2000, Congress proudly signed into law the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), with two goals in mind - protecting victims of human trafficking and prosecuting their traffickers. Yet years after the passage of the TVPA, trafficking victims found in the United States are still too often treated like criminals by those charged with protecting them. Victims are charged for immigration-related offenses, deported at the borders for attempting to enter with documents traffickers have foisted upon them, arrested and detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and prosecuted by Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys. DHS inspection officers fail to observe that they are questioning victims of human trafficking, even when clear signals are given by victims in fear of their lives. Victims are held in detention for months and sometimes years by the DHS at considerable taxpayer expense, and judges are unclear why trafficking is a human rights offense tantamount to slavery. In short, government personnel charged with protecting victims of human trafficking and prosecuting their traffickers, particularly outside of task forces headquartered in Washington, D.C., have little or no understanding of the obligations the nation undertook in passing the TVPA and, in consequence, U.S. personnel are working contrary to the purposes of the Act.

The article suggests where procedurally and as a matter of policy, the government has gone wrong, employing a case study as a device to point to the particular problems of trafficking victims in accessing the law. It presents the approach the United States has taken to combating human trafficking and details the meta-problems that continue to undermine its effectiveness. It sets forth the ways in which the root causes of trafficking have been obscured, in service to a preferred focus on sex and victimhood. It reviews the misapplication of the law both by those tasked to interpret it, and by politicians who have tacked their own political agendas onto anti-trafficking initiatives, leading the nation away from a hardnosed and honest look at the problems of causation in trafficking, and discussed the distortions that result from the issue conflation. The article presents an alternate view of trafficking, which involves reframing the trafficking issue through the lens of migration, and which would require U.S. government personnel to approach trafficking with the understanding that being victimized by traffickers and yet still demonstrating personal agency are not only not mutually exclusive, but tantamount to surviving the crime.

immigration, human rights, human trafficking, international law, migration

Abstract:
Human rights advocates are at risk of essentializing and re-victimizing the beneficiaries of their own human rights advocacy, or so critics argue. This article looks at human rights advocacy and the merits of client-centered lawyering as opposed to cause lawyering in the human rights context. In this article, the author both acknowledges the validity of and responds to arguments put forward by human rights critics, in which they admonish human rights activists that they are at risk of Western Imperialism in both the selection of their causes and the strategies they use to move their advocacy forward. The author describes client-centered human rights advocacy, particularly as it is being taught and practiced in law school clinics. The author responds to the critics by asking them to consider whether human rights advocacy as practiced when centered in the real needs of a real client, or "client-centered human rights advocacy" would escape some or all of their criticism. Finally, in acknowledging those parts of the human rights critiques with which the author agrees, she concludes that human rights practitioners, and particularly human rights clinicians, must be rigorously reflective, in particular when taking on particular human rights cases, and must consider the benefits of centering their advocacy in the goals and needs of a real client, as opposed to an issue.

human rights, cause lawyering, client-centered advocacy, human rights criticism, human rights advocacy, human rights clinical practice

Abstract:
Many good people within the federal, state and local governments and within civil society are engaging to combat human trafficking. Nevertheless, there remain crucial problems in the non-implementation of the otherwise good laws that exist to protect victims of human trafficking. One problem involves the still persistent inability or unwillingness of law enforcement to look beyond stereotypes to recognize or believe victims who, for instance, were not rescued by law enforcement. Another problem involves an unnecessary chilling effect whereby law enforcement do not certify victims of human trafficking, therein enabling them to receiving victim support services, when law enforcement fear that prosecutors will not be able or willing to take the case. These and other problems largely limit the United States from achieving its stated goal of finding and assisting victims of human trafficking.

human trafficking, international law, human rights law

Abstract:
Over the past fifty-odd years, nations of the world have been grappling with the extent to which they should intervene in the wars of others, or whether to intervene at all. Some of the State-level soul searching is pragmatic and strategic. The pragmatic argument justifying intervention is that failing societies with weak or abusive governments, which are embroiled in civil conflict, create regional and global instability and launch refugee flows. The analysis undertaken is a self-centered one: would intervention in another state's affairs improve the lot of our country either directly or indirectly by creating a safer and more stable world? A different, though interrelated line of inquiry is founded on the notion of human rights: is there a legal or moral imperative which demands we intervene to save the people from their own state?

This paper, the first chapter from a forthcoming book, concerns itself with the nature and process of intervention and with what happened after intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Specifically, what are the institutions which make up the international administration post-conflict, and who are the people working within them? What law and policy do they apply and what objectives do they think they are working to achieve? The exercise of post conflict reconstruction is often undertaken by lawyers, attempting to carry out policies created by politicians who had the objective of negotiating a ceasefire, not the objective of rebuilding an entire nation. This chapter concludes with three simple but unique points which, if adopted, would benefit post conflict reconstruction operations. First, as an evolving, organic process, effective international administration must allow for and encourage those in the field to regularly break from reactive mode to reflect on the value and success of the work they do. Second, in developing both the theory and practice of post conflict reconstruction, the opinions of both those in the field and those commenting from a distance (the practice and the theory) have a place and should be sought. Finally, post conflict nation building touches on the competencies of many disciplines (law, political science, anthropology, psychology, and economics among them) and professionals from each of those disciplines should be incorporated into the development of a normative framework of post conflict reconstruction.

international law, public international law, ethnic conflict, post conflict reconstruction, transitional justice, international organizations, human rights law

Abstract:
This paper exams the nature and origins of international civil service and points out the ways in which lack of appropriate care and training of international civil servants directly relates to ethical miscalculations of internationals in the field. The author relates some of her experiences working in international organizations and observes that the level of training on issues pertaining to international law, ethics and codes of conduct is inconsistent at best and often non-existent. For internationals to remain safe in the field, to even begin to fulfill their mission and to move toward the mandates set forth in the UN Charter, many more resources must be devoted to properly training international civil servants about the nature of their missions and to their protection and care in carrying out those missions.

international organizations, gender and international organizations, United Nations, international humanitarian law, post conflict reconstruction

Abstract:
People around the world are on the move, pushed by external events such as civil war, political upheaval, and increasingly environmental disasters and pulled by the lure of a better life, a better job, a better way to provide for their families. The United States has created an inconsistent legal framework for responding to the exploitation of immigrants. The degree to which we offer protections against exploitation depends on the degree to which we recognize victimhood, with the label of victim only frugally bestowed upon those who are also viewed as essential to sustaining the US economy. Trafficked persons are not useful to legitimate US businesspersons, and are accordingly protected, while agricultural and factory workers are very useful to businesspersons whom we regard as legitimate. This paper looks at the psychology of migration and migration theory, and the human rights framework as a protection tool designed for migrants. It explores the notion of exploitation, and in particular the extent to which people in transit, migrants, are particularly vulnerable due to the very human nature that drives them to wish to improve their circumstances. It looks at the characteristics of exploitation, from the perspective of the exploiter and the exploited, and proposes that part of the reason migrants are so vulnerable to exploitation is the private sphere nature of the movement through and into new cultures and legal systems in which the migrant lives and works on the fringes of society, not fully embraced by it. The author then identifies two specific forms of exploitation, human trafficking and the labor abuse of agricultural laborers and guestworkers, and examines the international and domestic US legal responses to exploitation in those two contexts, theorizing that Americans and countries adhering to free market economies have very mixed feelings about exploitation. On the one hand we believe that exploitation is morally and past a certain degree even legally wrong, but on the other accepting it as a necessary characteristic of doing business in the global market. The article then looks into principles of democracy and capitalism to search for answers, suggesting that legal responses to exploitation alone will never be sufficient, and that civil society, wielding human rights arguments and tools may be the most effective counterforce to exploitation. Finally, the author offers a prescription for change, recommending in part that civil society and immigration law responses be bolstered to protect against exploitation and create a culture of concern for exploitated persons.

immigration, law and society, labor, international law, human rights

Abstract:
In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), there is a vast and sprawling marketplace that sprang up just as the peace accords were going into effect, bringing to some conclusion three and a half years of bloody ethnic fighting. The place is called Arizona Market and it was said by some to be a shining example of capitalism, evidence of the positive impact of the particular type of political and economic engineering that takes place in the reconstruction after a war. But the narratives about what Arizona Market truly represents abound to a degree which belies the facts that the market is a mere thirty-five acres in size, a mere thirteen years old and host to thousands of flea market stalls. There are narratives which call Arizona Market a success and others which reveal the market as a clear example of cocksure neo-liberal wrongheadedness. There are myths about the ability of a market to bring about peaceful relations between warring ethnicities through the neutrality of commerce, even where peace was hard to come by in the rest of Bosnia. The narratives surrounding Arizona Market are conflicting, and they all hold some truth. It was a place to buy bread when there was no bread to be found, but it was also a place to buy human beings to satisfy sexual appetites. It remains a dark place, laden with black market activity and organized crime, even while its taxation has funded the shining democratic success story of the town of Brcko, in whose shadow Arizona Market sits.

This article will discuss Arizona Market as an example of what is wrong with the type of politico-economic engineering which takes place in early phases of post conflict reconstruction. In particular, it will, in Part I, examine the creation of Arizona Market, exploring the intents of the various actors (or non-actors) involved. Part II will look at what went on in Arizona Market and how its evolution was affected by the local, regional, national and international politics playing out in the area. Part III will examine the negative impacts of those activities on women in particular, and use Arizona Market to illustrate the disregard for gender and women in the peacemaking, peacebuilding and reconstruction processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will also look more deeply at the effects of neoliberal policies, of which Arizona Market was one, albeit an informal one, on women. Part IV will conclude with some observations, including the problems inherent in having the wrong people making economic and legal decisions simply because they are in place during the peacebuilding process. It will also question the soundness of the current post conflict reconstruction practices which assume that capitalism is a necessary and inherent component of democratization, human rights and the re-establishment of the rule of law, and will reveal some of the negative effects on women inherent in those policies.

post conflict reconstruction, human rights, gender, democratization, neoliberalism, post-colonialism

Abstract:
This paper explores the situation of women returning to their homes and communities after their countries have experienced major conflicts. In that context, it assesses the range of barriers and challenges that women face and offers some thinking to addresses and remedy these complex issues. As countries face the transition process, they can begin to measure the conflict’s impact on the population and the civil infrastructure. Not only have people been displaced from their homes, but, typically, health clinics, schools, roads, businesses, and markets have deteriorated substantially. While the focus is on humanitarian aid in the midst of and during the immediate aftermath, the focus turns to development-based activities for the longer-term.

Development activities provide a significant opportunity (and mandate) to ensure that gender is central to the transitional process. Here we take gender centrality to be a first principle of response – namely planning, integrating and placing gender at the heart of the development response to conflict. First, many of the post-conflict goals cannot be implemented when the population is starving, homeless, and mistrustful of government-sponsored services. Women constitute the overwhelming proportion of refugees displaced by war; not responding to their specific needs to return home dooms the reconstruction process. Second, women are central to any socioeconomic recovery process.

The paper first looks at the need to integrate development and post-conflict, and then turns to an analysis of why gender matters. It then looks at development as both a short and long-term process, using the model of “social services justice” to describe immediate needs as the country begins the peace stabilization process. Social services justice serves as an “engendered” bridge between conflict and security, running the temporal spectrum from humanitarian relief through post conflict to longer term development, any of which is inclusive of transitional justice. The goal throughout is to respond to the immediate needs of the population post-conflict, ranging from livelihoods to health to education.

refugees, post-conflict, gender, development, human rights, immigration

Abstract:
This chapter, part of a forthcoming book entitled Human Rights in Crisis (A. Bullard, ed; Ashgate:London 2008) contributes to the interdisciplinary discussion surrounding human trafficking, offering the perspective of human trafficking as a migration issue. Through years of conflating human trafficking with other political agendas, most particularly immigration and the related fear of opening the floodgates to masses of migrants, it has been lost to law makers that human trafficking is in fact a migration issue. It is people who seek or need to leave their present circumstances and move elsewhere who are at risk and who are in fact sought after by traffickers in human beings. Only through a closer look at the motivations compelling trafficking victims to move, which in turn requires a look at the motivations of all migrants, will it be possible to begin to eradicate human trafficking.

migration, immigration, human rights, international law, human trafficking