Karen Yulieth Prieto Bravo - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Karen Yulieth Prieto Bravo

Article published in the Michigan State International Law Review.

AJIL Unbound, 2014

Even ten years ago, the phrase “human trafficking” might have evoked blank stares in many circles... more Even ten years ago, the phrase “human trafficking” might have evoked blank stares in many circles. Today, the existence of a contemporary trade in human beings has blossomed fully into public awareness. Discussion of and expositions about human traffickingappear not only in sensationalist media reports, but also in many other arenas, such as film dramas, documentaries, books and articles by scholars from a variety of disciplines, activist NGO websites, and legislative chambers across the globe.However, some legal scholars as well as other scholars in the human trafficking sphere admit to a growing unease. Why? There is the sense that the label is a mushrooming monster that encompasses or swallows up all forms of human exploitation, identifies or creates stereotypical bad guys and innocent victims, and yet leaves relatively untouched the root causes of the exploitation.

Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting, 2009

That is, within eight years, all the territories identified as an NCCT had taken steps to comply ... more That is, within eight years, all the territories identified as an NCCT had taken steps to comply with the standards of the Forty Recommendations, and had been investigated/monitored and delisted. Only Myanmar is currently subject to monitoring. 2007 NCCT REPORT, supra note 11, at 5; see also supra note 8 (summarizing Myanmar's/Burma's response to the TIP Reports). Both the names "Burma" and "Myanmar" are used in this article. The dual usage reflects references to "Myanmar" in FATF publications and to "Burma" in the TIP Reports. 13.

El sistema de costos tradicionales y la información que emana del sistema de contabilidad actual ... more El sistema de costos tradicionales y la información que emana del sistema de contabilidad actual dentro de la aereolínea relacionada con el uso de un costeo estándar implica para la compañía el asumir ineficiencias en el procesos productivo a la vez que presenta una evolución irreal del margen de contribución de las rutas, con la aplicación de Costos Basados en Actividades la aereolínea obtendrá costos unitarios mucho más preciso y útiles....

According to varied sources, 27 million people worldwide are enslaved and 4 million individuals a... more According to varied sources, 27 million people worldwide are enslaved and 4 million individuals are trafficked annually across international borders, including 17,500 people into the United States. The trade in human beings has significant ramifications for international human rights, international criminal law, and the global economy. Despite the expenditure of a great deal of intellectual, economic, psychological, and other resources to prevent and punish the traffic in human beings, the trade appears to grow annually in scope. Through this article, I will introduce a new market and trade-based framework for interpreting and combating the trade in human beings. The modern "re-emergence" of trafficking in human beings and of slavery is said to be linked to the deepening interconnection among countries in the global economy, overpopulation (with its consequent production of disposable people), and the economic and other vulnerabilities of the victims. In the international arena, member states of the UN have targeted the human trafficking phenomenon through the 2000 Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the Convention. In the United States, also in 2000, federal legislators adopted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), whose provisions are aimed at both domestic U.S. and international trafficking. Together with other domestic and international mechanisms and instruments utilized to combat trafficking, the Convention, the Protocol and the TVPA fall within four commonly utilized conceptual frameworks pressed into service and deployed to foster understanding of and combat the modern trafficking of human beings - the human rights, women's rights, labor rights and law enforcement frameworks. Of these, the law enforcement framework is predominant both internationally and in the U.S. domestic system. I propose a trade/market-based framework for interpreting and combating trafficking that would encompass and supplement the four frameworks utilized thus far by the international and domestic U.S anti-trafficking communities. I advocate a re-conceptualization of modern trafficking within the framework of the movement of peoples and migration, both licit and illicit, and call for the drafting and adoption of a multilateral labor liberalization agreement under the auspices of the GATT/WTO: a new Annex to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, with co-equal status to the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The growth of the nation state and the concomitant increase in the legislative and other barriers to the movement of peoples has driven and continues to drive the movement of people (and their labor) underground. The predecessor empires to today's states, such as Great Britain, Portugal and Spain, funded, supported and protected the birth and rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to satisfy the demands for labor of their economies and the economies of their overseas colonies. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, by creating the pre-conditions for human smuggling - and by extension human trafficking - together with failure to deploy consistent internal policies regarding the movement of human beings, the U.S. and Western Europe lay the foundations for the thriving market in human labor represented by illegal immigration and its worst form - the trafficking in humans. A failure to liberalize the trade in labor (the last classic factor of production (other than immobile land) not freed from state constraints, despite re-conceptualization of some labor as "human capital"), undermines the fundamental underpinnings of the vision for a globalized world that prioritizes, for example, competition, efficiency, and comparative advantage. Migrants seek to exchange their labor for value - to respond to market forces that promise higher prices for that labor across international/state borders. If the comparative advantage of some - usually developing - countries is their abundance of available labor, individuals and organizations from those countries should be able to freely trade their labor internationally within the institutional framework of the GATT/WTO system. The increasing use of barriers to movement of human beings (and their labor) is based, among others things, on concern for state national security. Also present is the fear that to allow unconstrained movement of peoples and the sharing in the wealth of Western countries might result in the loss to the West of that wealth and its advantages. It is also sometimes considered as a potential threat to that sacred notion of national identity.

The Business and Human Rights Landscape

Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, 2015

The state maketh and un-maketh; It giveth and it taketh away It makes members and non-members, Ex... more The state maketh and un-maketh; It giveth and it taketh away It makes members and non-members, Exploiter, exploited, and exploitable In accordance with law. And is, itself, exploiter, exploited, and exploitable. In accordance with law.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

I. INTRODUCTION Transatlantic slavery was a centuries-long international trade in people and thei... more I. INTRODUCTION Transatlantic slavery was a centuries-long international trade in people and their labor, spanning from the early 1500s to the 1880s.' Since the end of transatlantic slavery in 1888,2 nation-states and international institutions have legally recognized and been committed to protecting the fundamental rights of human beings. In light of these promised protections, resurgence in the enslavement of human beings would seem impossible. However, that resurgence has been documented worldwide in the form of human trafficking. 4 Indeed, an analysis of the economic roots and structure of the two forms of exploitation reveals that modern trafficking in human beings is as interconnected with, and central to, contemporary domestic and global economies as the transatlantic trade and slavery were to their contemporaneous economic systems. This article examines some uses of the transatlantic slave trade in modern anti-human trafficking efforts and discourse as well as the impact of those uses. In addition, this article identifies the role of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century efforts against white slavery in the modern discourse. While references to transatlantic slavery are used to frame the discourse of modern trafficking, it is the fight against white slavery, rather than the transatlantic slave trade, to which the typical modern trafficking combatant owes her intellectual debts. Even more, the focus of late nineteenth and early twentieth century activists on sex and the protection of women continues to limit understanding of the fundamental similarities among the transatlantic slave trade, white slavery, and contemporary trafficking in humans. Analysis of the transatlantic slave trade and of white Contemporary Anti-Human Trafficking Discourse indigenous inhabitants of the Americas who had quickly fallen prey to the colonists' depredations, diseases, and labor demands. The transatlantic slave trade and African slavery played an integral role in European exploration and settlement of the Western hemisphere. 43 Historians estimate that from the 1400s until Brazil ended its slave trade in 1888 (the last country in the hemisphere to do so)," over 9.5 million Africans were shipped from Africa to the Americas and elsewhere. 45 Slave labor was used in all areas of New World life. The vast bulk of the enslaved Africans and their New World descendants were destined for agricultural labor on the plantations of Europe's colonies in the Caribbean and in Central and South America, as well as the United States. However, slave labor was essential to all aspects of the New World economies. 46 Following hard-fought political battles in Britain, the African slave trade was outlawed in the British Empire in 1807, with the prohibition becoming effective on January 1, 1808.47 Enshrined in and protected by the US Constitution, 48 the slave trade officially ended in the United States by congressional legislation that same year. 49 Nevertheless, illicit trade from Africa and a newly resurgent internal trade in black slaves continued in the continental United States.o In addition, the importation of slaves across the Atlantic to the Americas continued until 1850."' A. Uses of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Anti-Trafficking Discourse Much of the literature describing and analyzing modem human trafficking-as well as scholarship from commentators, legislators, and government officials-invoke and analogize to the transatlantic slave trade. Such invocations and analogies occur in many venues and are widespread in media reports, scholarly literature, legislative history, and policy, as well as pronouncements from the President of the United States. The content of these references and analogies varies with the intent of their users. The "old 2005) (reporting, analyzing and presenting in table format the analyses conducted in 1968 by historian Philip D. Curtin and in 2001 by historian David Eltis, who estimated, respectively, that 9,556,000 and 9,599,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic during the transatlantic slave trade.). 46 DAVIS, INHUMAN BONDAGE, supra note 1, at 129.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

Through the figures of Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, and Truganini, the “last Tasmanian... more Through the figures of Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, and Truganini, the “last Tasmanian Aboriginal,” this Chapter explores the contrasts between the historic status of black women as chattel (“not-human” things) and their choices and actions in pursuit of the “things” of importance to them. The “choices” made by these women add complexity to the understanding of the nature of “choice” in international law, with particular relevance to the discussion of “choice” and “consent” in the global struggle against human exploitation. The Chapter also addresses Saartjie Baartman’s and Trugannini’s roles in relation to their contemporaneous and contemporary communities. Their bodies “proved” the scientific bases of “natural” racial hierarchies and subordination. The stories of their exploitation cemented the theoretical foundations of the expansion of positivist theories of international law, and illustrate the co-existence of freedom and enslavement.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2007

generously provided comments on earlier drafts. I am grateful for the comments and suggestions of... more generously provided comments on earlier drafts. I am grateful for the comments and suggestions of the participants at the works in progress sessions at LatCrit XII in September 2006 and at the joint Association of American Law Schools/American Society of International Law MidYear Meeting in June 2007, and to my colleagues at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis who attended the March 2007 Faculty Colloquium. Reference Librarian, Debra Denslaw was invaluable in tracking down critical sources. Taffie R.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

West Indies. My thanks to Connie Wagner and the editors of the St. Louis University School of Law... more West Indies. My thanks to Connie Wagner and the editors of the St. Louis University School of Law Public Law Review for their invitation to participate in the Symposium, as well as to Symposium attendees for their insightful questions and comments. My fellow panelists, Greg Bowman and Elizabeth Trujillo, discussant Janet Koven Levit, and participants at the June 2008 Law and Society Annual Meeting provided thought-provoking comments and feedback to the ideas explored in the article. My colleague, Dan Cole, offered interest, encouragement and sources. My colleagues, Maria Pab6n Lopez and R. George Wright; Tequila Brooks, LL.M. candidate George Washington University Law School and former labor law advisor, Commission for Labor Cooperation Secretariat; Dean Kevin R. Johnson; and Ian S. McIntosh gave helpful comments on early drafts. I am grateful for Afshan Paarlberg's research assistance.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

The failure of states to liberalize labor as part of the multilateral trade liberalization projec... more The failure of states to liberalize labor as part of the multilateral trade liberalization project stands in stark contradiction to the liberalization of other fundamental economic inputs, thus undermining the vision for a globalized world. The disjuncture and disequilibrium between international trade law and domestic immigration law foster illegal movement across borders and result in the vulnerability of human would-be mobile labor providers to trafficking and other forms of exploitation. As a result, the transnational labor market is characterized by the illegality and temporariness that is assigned by states to mobile and would-be mobile human providers of labor. Yet, the globalized transnational economy demands and stimulates the movement of labor from one domestic economy to another. Domestic social contracts, to the extent that they exist, are subject to the pressures of transnational economic forces that have altered, fundamentally, the existing contracts between, for example, labor and capital. Concepts of distributive justice require democratization of access to the benefits of trade liberalization. To the extent that individual nation-states’ domestic laws demand that labor be rendered immobile and/or that mobile human labor providers be punished for transgressing the laws created to ensure their immobility, labor is denied full access to the benefits of trade liberalization. To create a rights-protective equilibrium in the transnational labor market, I contend that the economic nature of humans — our economic roles in the global economic system — must be more fully recognized. That recognition will require that human labor providers must have the right to easily enter and exit individual domestic labor markets in response to economic stimuli. I propose that the path to the framing, implementation, and enforcement of a global social contract that protects labor is to liberalize labor from some of the nation-state constraints to which the transborder labor market is subject.

N. Ill. UL Rev., 2011

Copyright (c) 2011 Board of Trustees, for Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois Universi... more Copyright (c) 2011 Board of Trustees, for Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois University Law Review. Summer, 2011. 31 N. Ill. UL Rev. 467. LENGTH: 13872 words On Making Persons: Legal Constructions of Personhood and Their Nexus with Human Trafficking. NAME: ...

Article published in the Michigan State International Law Review.

AJIL Unbound, 2014

Even ten years ago, the phrase “human trafficking” might have evoked blank stares in many circles... more Even ten years ago, the phrase “human trafficking” might have evoked blank stares in many circles. Today, the existence of a contemporary trade in human beings has blossomed fully into public awareness. Discussion of and expositions about human traffickingappear not only in sensationalist media reports, but also in many other arenas, such as film dramas, documentaries, books and articles by scholars from a variety of disciplines, activist NGO websites, and legislative chambers across the globe.However, some legal scholars as well as other scholars in the human trafficking sphere admit to a growing unease. Why? There is the sense that the label is a mushrooming monster that encompasses or swallows up all forms of human exploitation, identifies or creates stereotypical bad guys and innocent victims, and yet leaves relatively untouched the root causes of the exploitation.

Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting, 2009

That is, within eight years, all the territories identified as an NCCT had taken steps to comply ... more That is, within eight years, all the territories identified as an NCCT had taken steps to comply with the standards of the Forty Recommendations, and had been investigated/monitored and delisted. Only Myanmar is currently subject to monitoring. 2007 NCCT REPORT, supra note 11, at 5; see also supra note 8 (summarizing Myanmar's/Burma's response to the TIP Reports). Both the names "Burma" and "Myanmar" are used in this article. The dual usage reflects references to "Myanmar" in FATF publications and to "Burma" in the TIP Reports. 13.

El sistema de costos tradicionales y la información que emana del sistema de contabilidad actual ... more El sistema de costos tradicionales y la información que emana del sistema de contabilidad actual dentro de la aereolínea relacionada con el uso de un costeo estándar implica para la compañía el asumir ineficiencias en el procesos productivo a la vez que presenta una evolución irreal del margen de contribución de las rutas, con la aplicación de Costos Basados en Actividades la aereolínea obtendrá costos unitarios mucho más preciso y útiles....

According to varied sources, 27 million people worldwide are enslaved and 4 million individuals a... more According to varied sources, 27 million people worldwide are enslaved and 4 million individuals are trafficked annually across international borders, including 17,500 people into the United States. The trade in human beings has significant ramifications for international human rights, international criminal law, and the global economy. Despite the expenditure of a great deal of intellectual, economic, psychological, and other resources to prevent and punish the traffic in human beings, the trade appears to grow annually in scope. Through this article, I will introduce a new market and trade-based framework for interpreting and combating the trade in human beings. The modern "re-emergence" of trafficking in human beings and of slavery is said to be linked to the deepening interconnection among countries in the global economy, overpopulation (with its consequent production of disposable people), and the economic and other vulnerabilities of the victims. In the international arena, member states of the UN have targeted the human trafficking phenomenon through the 2000 Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the Convention. In the United States, also in 2000, federal legislators adopted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), whose provisions are aimed at both domestic U.S. and international trafficking. Together with other domestic and international mechanisms and instruments utilized to combat trafficking, the Convention, the Protocol and the TVPA fall within four commonly utilized conceptual frameworks pressed into service and deployed to foster understanding of and combat the modern trafficking of human beings - the human rights, women's rights, labor rights and law enforcement frameworks. Of these, the law enforcement framework is predominant both internationally and in the U.S. domestic system. I propose a trade/market-based framework for interpreting and combating trafficking that would encompass and supplement the four frameworks utilized thus far by the international and domestic U.S anti-trafficking communities. I advocate a re-conceptualization of modern trafficking within the framework of the movement of peoples and migration, both licit and illicit, and call for the drafting and adoption of a multilateral labor liberalization agreement under the auspices of the GATT/WTO: a new Annex to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, with co-equal status to the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The growth of the nation state and the concomitant increase in the legislative and other barriers to the movement of peoples has driven and continues to drive the movement of people (and their labor) underground. The predecessor empires to today's states, such as Great Britain, Portugal and Spain, funded, supported and protected the birth and rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to satisfy the demands for labor of their economies and the economies of their overseas colonies. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, by creating the pre-conditions for human smuggling - and by extension human trafficking - together with failure to deploy consistent internal policies regarding the movement of human beings, the U.S. and Western Europe lay the foundations for the thriving market in human labor represented by illegal immigration and its worst form - the trafficking in humans. A failure to liberalize the trade in labor (the last classic factor of production (other than immobile land) not freed from state constraints, despite re-conceptualization of some labor as "human capital"), undermines the fundamental underpinnings of the vision for a globalized world that prioritizes, for example, competition, efficiency, and comparative advantage. Migrants seek to exchange their labor for value - to respond to market forces that promise higher prices for that labor across international/state borders. If the comparative advantage of some - usually developing - countries is their abundance of available labor, individuals and organizations from those countries should be able to freely trade their labor internationally within the institutional framework of the GATT/WTO system. The increasing use of barriers to movement of human beings (and their labor) is based, among others things, on concern for state national security. Also present is the fear that to allow unconstrained movement of peoples and the sharing in the wealth of Western countries might result in the loss to the West of that wealth and its advantages. It is also sometimes considered as a potential threat to that sacred notion of national identity.

The Business and Human Rights Landscape

Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, 2015

The state maketh and un-maketh; It giveth and it taketh away It makes members and non-members, Ex... more The state maketh and un-maketh; It giveth and it taketh away It makes members and non-members, Exploiter, exploited, and exploitable In accordance with law. And is, itself, exploiter, exploited, and exploitable. In accordance with law.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

I. INTRODUCTION Transatlantic slavery was a centuries-long international trade in people and thei... more I. INTRODUCTION Transatlantic slavery was a centuries-long international trade in people and their labor, spanning from the early 1500s to the 1880s.' Since the end of transatlantic slavery in 1888,2 nation-states and international institutions have legally recognized and been committed to protecting the fundamental rights of human beings. In light of these promised protections, resurgence in the enslavement of human beings would seem impossible. However, that resurgence has been documented worldwide in the form of human trafficking. 4 Indeed, an analysis of the economic roots and structure of the two forms of exploitation reveals that modern trafficking in human beings is as interconnected with, and central to, contemporary domestic and global economies as the transatlantic trade and slavery were to their contemporaneous economic systems. This article examines some uses of the transatlantic slave trade in modern anti-human trafficking efforts and discourse as well as the impact of those uses. In addition, this article identifies the role of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century efforts against white slavery in the modern discourse. While references to transatlantic slavery are used to frame the discourse of modern trafficking, it is the fight against white slavery, rather than the transatlantic slave trade, to which the typical modern trafficking combatant owes her intellectual debts. Even more, the focus of late nineteenth and early twentieth century activists on sex and the protection of women continues to limit understanding of the fundamental similarities among the transatlantic slave trade, white slavery, and contemporary trafficking in humans. Analysis of the transatlantic slave trade and of white Contemporary Anti-Human Trafficking Discourse indigenous inhabitants of the Americas who had quickly fallen prey to the colonists' depredations, diseases, and labor demands. The transatlantic slave trade and African slavery played an integral role in European exploration and settlement of the Western hemisphere. 43 Historians estimate that from the 1400s until Brazil ended its slave trade in 1888 (the last country in the hemisphere to do so)," over 9.5 million Africans were shipped from Africa to the Americas and elsewhere. 45 Slave labor was used in all areas of New World life. The vast bulk of the enslaved Africans and their New World descendants were destined for agricultural labor on the plantations of Europe's colonies in the Caribbean and in Central and South America, as well as the United States. However, slave labor was essential to all aspects of the New World economies. 46 Following hard-fought political battles in Britain, the African slave trade was outlawed in the British Empire in 1807, with the prohibition becoming effective on January 1, 1808.47 Enshrined in and protected by the US Constitution, 48 the slave trade officially ended in the United States by congressional legislation that same year. 49 Nevertheless, illicit trade from Africa and a newly resurgent internal trade in black slaves continued in the continental United States.o In addition, the importation of slaves across the Atlantic to the Americas continued until 1850."' A. Uses of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Anti-Trafficking Discourse Much of the literature describing and analyzing modem human trafficking-as well as scholarship from commentators, legislators, and government officials-invoke and analogize to the transatlantic slave trade. Such invocations and analogies occur in many venues and are widespread in media reports, scholarly literature, legislative history, and policy, as well as pronouncements from the President of the United States. The content of these references and analogies varies with the intent of their users. The "old 2005) (reporting, analyzing and presenting in table format the analyses conducted in 1968 by historian Philip D. Curtin and in 2001 by historian David Eltis, who estimated, respectively, that 9,556,000 and 9,599,000 Africans were shipped across the Atlantic during the transatlantic slave trade.). 46 DAVIS, INHUMAN BONDAGE, supra note 1, at 129.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

Through the figures of Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, and Truganini, the “last Tasmanian... more Through the figures of Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, and Truganini, the “last Tasmanian Aboriginal,” this Chapter explores the contrasts between the historic status of black women as chattel (“not-human” things) and their choices and actions in pursuit of the “things” of importance to them. The “choices” made by these women add complexity to the understanding of the nature of “choice” in international law, with particular relevance to the discussion of “choice” and “consent” in the global struggle against human exploitation. The Chapter also addresses Saartjie Baartman’s and Trugannini’s roles in relation to their contemporaneous and contemporary communities. Their bodies “proved” the scientific bases of “natural” racial hierarchies and subordination. The stories of their exploitation cemented the theoretical foundations of the expansion of positivist theories of international law, and illustrate the co-existence of freedom and enslavement.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2007

generously provided comments on earlier drafts. I am grateful for the comments and suggestions of... more generously provided comments on earlier drafts. I am grateful for the comments and suggestions of the participants at the works in progress sessions at LatCrit XII in September 2006 and at the joint Association of American Law Schools/American Society of International Law MidYear Meeting in June 2007, and to my colleagues at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis who attended the March 2007 Faculty Colloquium. Reference Librarian, Debra Denslaw was invaluable in tracking down critical sources. Taffie R.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2008

West Indies. My thanks to Connie Wagner and the editors of the St. Louis University School of Law... more West Indies. My thanks to Connie Wagner and the editors of the St. Louis University School of Law Public Law Review for their invitation to participate in the Symposium, as well as to Symposium attendees for their insightful questions and comments. My fellow panelists, Greg Bowman and Elizabeth Trujillo, discussant Janet Koven Levit, and participants at the June 2008 Law and Society Annual Meeting provided thought-provoking comments and feedback to the ideas explored in the article. My colleague, Dan Cole, offered interest, encouragement and sources. My colleagues, Maria Pab6n Lopez and R. George Wright; Tequila Brooks, LL.M. candidate George Washington University Law School and former labor law advisor, Commission for Labor Cooperation Secretariat; Dean Kevin R. Johnson; and Ian S. McIntosh gave helpful comments on early drafts. I am grateful for Afshan Paarlberg's research assistance.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

The failure of states to liberalize labor as part of the multilateral trade liberalization projec... more The failure of states to liberalize labor as part of the multilateral trade liberalization project stands in stark contradiction to the liberalization of other fundamental economic inputs, thus undermining the vision for a globalized world. The disjuncture and disequilibrium between international trade law and domestic immigration law foster illegal movement across borders and result in the vulnerability of human would-be mobile labor providers to trafficking and other forms of exploitation. As a result, the transnational labor market is characterized by the illegality and temporariness that is assigned by states to mobile and would-be mobile human providers of labor. Yet, the globalized transnational economy demands and stimulates the movement of labor from one domestic economy to another. Domestic social contracts, to the extent that they exist, are subject to the pressures of transnational economic forces that have altered, fundamentally, the existing contracts between, for example, labor and capital. Concepts of distributive justice require democratization of access to the benefits of trade liberalization. To the extent that individual nation-states’ domestic laws demand that labor be rendered immobile and/or that mobile human labor providers be punished for transgressing the laws created to ensure their immobility, labor is denied full access to the benefits of trade liberalization. To create a rights-protective equilibrium in the transnational labor market, I contend that the economic nature of humans — our economic roles in the global economic system — must be more fully recognized. That recognition will require that human labor providers must have the right to easily enter and exit individual domestic labor markets in response to economic stimuli. I propose that the path to the framing, implementation, and enforcement of a global social contract that protects labor is to liberalize labor from some of the nation-state constraints to which the transborder labor market is subject.

N. Ill. UL Rev., 2011

Copyright (c) 2011 Board of Trustees, for Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois Universi... more Copyright (c) 2011 Board of Trustees, for Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois University Law Review. Summer, 2011. 31 N. Ill. UL Rev. 467. LENGTH: 13872 words On Making Persons: Legal Constructions of Personhood and Their Nexus with Human Trafficking. NAME: ...