Yesterday I blogged about the Roundtable Discussion co-hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Global Freedom Network, and the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. More information has become available about the content of that important meeting which the Embassy described as follows:
[T]he Embassy was proud to co-host with the Global Freedom Network and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences a digital video conference with Luis CdeBaca, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, to discuss this year’s U.S. Department of State's Trafficking in Persons report. Over 40 representatives from the Vatican, Embassies to the Holy See, NGOs, and media outlets were present to learn about the report and talk about how to improve and increase anti-trafficking efforts.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, this meeting exemplifies one of many efforts to bring together different stakeholders to discuss and combat one of the most pressing moral and legal issues of our time. Of particular interest to MOJ readers may be the comments of Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo. Among other things, he comments on this interplay between an overwhelming social problem and the potential for defeating it when religions, governments, and the private sector actors find common ground and act:
Because of the human and moral scandal they mean and interests involved, which lead to pessimism and resignation, many international institutions have turned their backs. This is why the 2014 TIP Report is so important, which we can say was especially motivated by President Obama’s visit to Pope Francis, as confirmed one of the opening photos.
We must thus be grateful to Pope Francis and to President Obama and to Secretary of State John Kerry for identifying one of the most important social tragedies of our times and having enough confidence in democratic institutions to instruct them to be responsible to spot human trafficking, engage our communities, and commit to take action. As you know, after our November workshop, we decided to tackle this issue by founding an interreligious partnership called the Global Freedom Network, which you can read more about on our website www.gfn2020.org
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As religious people we can repeat the words of Pope Francis during the canonization of the Mexican St Guadalupe García Zavala, “this is called 'touching the flesh of Christ'. The poor, the abandoned, the sick and the marginalized are the flesh of Christ. And Mother Lupita touched the flesh of Christ and taught us this behaviour: not to feel ashamed, not to fear, not to find 'touching Christ’s flesh' repugnant. Mother Lupita had realized what 'touching Christ’s flesh' actually means”. Pope Francis’ words are a clear response in the light of Jesus Christ’s message to this new form of contemporary slavery, which constitutes an abhorrent violation of the dignity and rights of human beings.
The full text of the Bishop’s remarks, as well as those of U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Ken Hackett and U.S. Ambassador At Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Luis CdeBaca, can be found here and are definitely worth the read.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Today is the first UN World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. To commemorate the day, the U.K. Ambassador to the Holy See, Nigel Baker, has blogged about a roundtable hosted by Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Vatican-based Global Freedom Network (an initiative of Pope Francis and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby) and the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. He has entitled the piece, “Human Trafficking: Responding to the Pope’s Appeal.”
Teaching, writing, and studying Human Trafficking can be a dark subject matter. This was underscored for me this summer when I taught my Human Trafficking seminar every day in Catholic University Law School’s Rome Human Rights Program – as opposed to once a week as in a regular semester. I saw that the material became a bit overwhelming to these young adults in the class when faced with such a volume of information at such a fast pace. It is often difficult to see anything positive in the field. Yet, this post struck me for two reasons.
First, it is a nice reflective piece on concrete ways governments, religious institutions, and private entities can come together to address a complex social issue. It is no surprise to me that central in this event was the U.S. Ambassador at Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Person, Luis CdeBaca. He has done an excellent job of recognizing and including in this movement the work of religious organizations and private entities.
Second, and somewhat unrelated – it struck this Irish woman how amazing it was that a British official was publicly posting a reflection on how we all need to respond to a pope’s appeal for action. It is not only that one could not have imagined such an act 20 years ago. One could not underestimate the tension between Catholics and non-Catholic in Britain - less than 7 years ago former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was called a “fool” for converting to Catholicism.
Yet, today we see unity from across social groups behind this abolitionist movement as reflected in this blog piece.
Therefore, notwithstanding the difficulty in working in this area, there are small rays of hope that great social challenges can be overcome…and Catholic legal and social thought is playing a role.
One of the results of MOJ's recent move to the Law Professor Blogs Network is that now a picture of men's underwear for sale often impinges on the retained (and beautiful) image of Our Lady Mirror of Justice. Perhaps this is the (unintended) application of the schoolboy's Latin pun "semper ubi sub ubi"?
Faced with demands by adjunct faculty to unionize, a number of Catholic colleges and universities have argued that they are not subject to NLRB jurisdiction, claiming an exemption as a "religious employer." In a piece I wrote for Pepperdine's symposium on The Competing Claims of Law and Religions a couple of years ago, I suggested that, in the case of adjunct faculty, NLRB oversight was not likely to create the kind of entanglement that exemption was concerned with. I also expressed concern about Catholic institutions of higher education attempting to use the exemption as a shield allowing them to tread adjuncts in ways inconsistent with Catholic social teachings.
Faced with efforts by adjunct faculty to unionize, the University of St. Thomas took a different approach. University President Julie Sullivan, expressed sympathy for the position of adjuncts, but explained why she thought unionization was not the best way to promote the interests of adjuncts and the university. Her arguments were apparently persuasive: The NLRB just certified the results of the election that was recently held: 136 opposed and 84 in favor of unionization.
In the immediate aftermath of the the certification, President Sullivan sent an e-mail to all adjunct faculty outlining her plans to address the top-level adjunct faculty priorities identified over the past year. These include creation of a new Adjunct Faculty Task Force who will work toward better integrating adjunct faculty into the univesity and providing them with a variety of participation options, providing adjunct representation on the faculty Senate, develop proposals for increasing adjunct faculty salaries and working to provide ways for adjunct faculty to participate in the university's benefit programs.
Whether all of this comes to fruition remains to be seen, but it is an enormous step in the right direction.
