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- Title
Willful Blindness: Applying a Drug Trafficking Theory of Liability to International Human Trafficking Prosecution.
- Authors
Young, Anne Miller Welborn
- Abstract
Evidentiary issues regarding the requisite mens rea for human trafficking complicate how and when corporations with human trafficking in their supply chains can be brought to justice. Currently, corporations need to have actual knowledge of trafficking in their supply chain in order to establish liability for labor trafficking. This Note argues that the willful blindness doctrine could and should be used to satisfy mens rea in human trafficking. The willful blindness doctrine is commonly used as a substitute for actual knowledge to satisfy mens rea in drug trafficking cases despite clear statutory guidance that the mens rea element of the crime of drug trafficking is actual knowledge. In the context of human trafficking cases, the willful blindness doctrine would be applied to a corporation that turned a blind eye to human trafficking in its supply chain, replacing the element of actual knowledge of human trafficking. This Note addresses the history of human trafficking and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), the precedent of the willful blindness doctrine in drug trafficking prosecution, the mens rea standard in human trafficking cases, arguments for applying the willful blindness doctrine to human trafficking cases, and case studies that illustrate how to do so. The extension of the willful blindness doctrine to human trafficking cases will usher in an overdue era of corporate supply chain accountability under the TVPRA, a US law with an international reach.
- Subjects
EVIDENTIARY hearings; HUMAN trafficking; SUPPLY chains; CORPORATIONS; WILLFUL blindness (Law)
- Publication
Berkeley Journal of International Law, 2022, Vol 40, Issue 1, p143
- ISSN
1085-5718
- Publication type
Article