Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Human Rights, Human Trafficking and Global Supply Chains
Jonathan Todres' post on 2/3/15 observed that Congress' willingness to enact anti-human trafficking legislation is, to all effects, a human rights victory, though Congress has not embraced human rights language to describe these efforts.
Still, language does matter, and it is worth noting that while members of Congress have not framed the trafficking issue in human rights terms, the Administration has. Speaking in 2012, President Obama stated that "[o]ur fight against human trafficking is one of the great human rights causes of our time." And in a speech and summit meeting last week marking National Human Slavery and Trafficking Prevention Month, Secretary of State John Kerry drew explicit connections between human rights, human trafficking and the global supply chains that enable labor exploitation.
In his January 29 speech, Secretary Kerry announced that in 2015, the Administration would focus its anti-trafficking efforts on supply chains. And the State Department honored the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and its Fair Food Campaign with a Presidential Award. Secretary Kerry particularly cited the Coalition's "extraordinary efforts to combat human trafficking by pioneering the Fair Food Program, empowering agricultural workers, and leveraging market forces and consumer awareness to promote supply chain transparency and eradicate modern slavery on participating farms." On the same day, the Administration finalized new anti-trafficking rules that increase the accountability of government contractors for human trafficking and monitoring. According to one legal analysis, these rules -- praised by advocates -- pose significant new burdens on federal contractors.
Human trafficking and global supply chains has been on the UN human rights agenda for a number of years. While Congress may not be quite ready to address these issues squarely as human rights issues, the Administration should be given credit for making explicit the connections between human rights, the global supply chain and human trafficking.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/human_rights/2015/02/human-rights-human-trafficking-and-global-supply-chains.html
Martha -- I appreciate your response/addition. I agree completely -- language does matter. There are some who argue that the early momentum on human trafficking was helped by framing it as a criminal law issue, rather than a human rights issue. But it undoubtedly is both. One of my points in my post was that for those reluctant to embrace a human rights approach, the current wave of human trafficking bills is evidence that the human rights approach already calls for much of what is now recognized as essential. So rather than fear human rights language or frameworks, we should embrace them. Thanks for adding your piece.
Posted by: Jonathan Todres | Feb 4, 2015 6:19:35 AM