U of M Law School to host international congress on human trafficking : UMNews : University of Minnesota

News Release
U of M Law School to host international congress on human trafficking

Contacts: Nicole Elsasser, Law School, elsa0011@umn.edu
Ryan Mathre, University News Service, mathre@umn.edu, (612) 625-0552

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/18/2010) — Experts in human trafficking, international criminal law, international children’s issues, victimized populations and other human rights fields will assemble at the University of Minnesota Law School April 2 for the 2010 International Congress on Human Trafficking.

Sessions are open to the public and will run from 9:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Law School’s Courtroom 180, 229 19th Ave. S. Minneapolis. A closing lecture and reception will follow in Auerbach Commons on the lower level.

The Congress will bring a comprehensive look to trafficking in its many manifestations, including trafficking for labor, drugs, sex and military purposes. It also will address the vulnerability of children to traffickers in international disaster hot spots and methods to combat this problem.

Michele Bratcher Goodwin, Everett Fraser Professor of Law, is the congress organizer. She holds joint appointments at the University of Minnesota Medical School and School of Public Health and is a prolific author and researcher on such issues as reproductive law, medical tourism, organ transplantation, law and status and socioeconomics in medicine. Her co-participants at the Congress:

• Danette Buskovick, director of Minnesota Statistical Analysis Center, Office of Justice Programs, and chief investigator in first statewide study of human trafficking

• Emma Christopher, Australian Research Fellow, University of Sydney and Gilder Lehrman Fellow, Yale University

• Sara Dillon, associate professor of law, Suffolk University Law School

• Maria Grahn-Farley, associate professor of law, Albany Law School

• Linda Miller, founder of human trafficking and exploitation victim support and advocacy organization Civil Society

• Luz E. Nagle, professor of international law and international criminal law, Stetson University College of Law

• Song Richardson, associate professor of law and co-director of Center for Law & Science, DePaul College of Law

• David M. Smolin, Harwell G. Davis Professor of Constitutional Law and director, Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University

• Elizabeth Sussekind, professor of criminology and human rights, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

• Harriet A. Washington, author of award-winning Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

This congress is the first in a series on international trafficking issues led by Professor Goodwin. The next one, on organ trafficking, will be held in Brazil in May 2010.

Members of the scientific committee overseeing the series are Professors Richardson and Sussekind; Dorothy A. Brown, Emory University Law School; Glenn Cohen, Harvard Law School; Abbe Gluck, Columbia University Law School; and Mary Simmerling, Weill Cornell Medical College.

The human trafficking series is part of the Law School’s deepening focus on international law and human rights, elements in its new Program on Law, Public Policy, and Society (LaPPS), which was developed to support innovative public policy research, visionary approaches to law, and practical solutions to complex problems. The Robina Foundation provided a $6.01 million grant to back the LaPPS and the Law School’s goals of excellence in public policy research and curriculum reform.


U of M Law School to host international congress on human trafficking : UMNews : University of Minnesota