New Research Guides on International Law and Human Trafficking

The GlobaLex collection at New York University has just updated two of its legal research guides:

• Introduction to Public International Law Research by Vicenç Feliú (David A. Clarke School of Law of the University of the District of Columbia): "Public International Law is composed of the laws, rules, and principles of general application that deal with the conduct of nation states and international organizations among themselves as well as the relationships between nation states and international organizations with persons, whether natural or juridical. Public International Law is sometimes called the 'law of nations' or just simply International Law. It should not be confused with Private International Law, which is primarily concerned with the resolution of conflict of laws in the international setting, determining the law of which country is applicable to specific situations. In researching this field of law, the researcher must also be aware of Comparative Law, the study of differences and similarities between the laws of different countries. Comparative Law is the study of the different legal systems in existence in the world, i.e.; common law, civil law, socialist law, Islamic law, Hindu law, and Chinese law. As there is no central international body that creates public international law, research in this field requires the use of a wide variety of sources."
• The Exploitation of Women and Children: A Comparative Study of Human Trafficking Laws between the United States-Mexico and China-Vietnam by Christina T. Le (immigration lawyer in Houston, Texas): "This paper seeks to understand the push and pull effects of human trafficking and to determine what may be the appropriate government practices to combat the problem. The research will focus on two parallel country conditions: United States-Mexico and China-Vietnam. The four countries on both sides of the world are experiencing similar problems with human trafficking. Preliminarily, the push and pull causes of human trafficking between the countries appear to be quite similar with the more affluent countries, China and the United States as the receiving country. The United States and China with better economic opportunities are seeing an influx of trafficking victims into their country from their southern neighbors. However, the policies the countries choose to address their human trafficking problems are quite different. The United States has a unilateral enforcement approach to stop human trafficking whereas China has a bilateral approach in working with Vietnam to address the situation. How each respective country has chosen to deal with the problem provides a great opportunity for research and analysis."