Dear Colleagues:

Congratulations go out to Tsachi Keren-Pazon on the publication of his new book: Sex Trafficking: A Private Law Response (2013, Glasshouse, Routledge).

From the synopsis:

Sex Trafficking: A Private Law Response examines existing and potential causes of action against sex traffickers, clients and the state and argues for fair and effective private law remedies. Combining a theoretical inquiry about the borders of liability in torts and restitution with a political commitment to protecting the interests of victims of sex trafficking, this book offers a comparative doctrinal and socio-legal analysis of private law remedies, their justification, and their effectiveness. Tsachi Keren-Paz innovatively and convincingly makes the argument that all those directly involved in breaching the rights of victims of sex trafficking should compensate them for their losses, and make restitution of the profits made at their expense. Sex Trafficking: A Private Law Response will be invaluable to both academics and practitioners concerned with prostitution, modern slavery and trafficking, and those interested in private law theory and practice.

 The book calls for extending the scope of traffickers’ liability and for extending the scope of available defendants—beyond traffickers—to clients and the state. The remedies for traffickers’ obligations to make restitution of profits and to compensate their victims in torts should be cumulative. The state should make restitution to victims of what it confiscated from traffickers as proceeds of crime, since the money belongs to victims, not to traffickers. Clients who had direct contact with victims should be strictly liable to victims in battery, and more controversially, in the proprietary tort of conversion. Clients who purchased commercial sex indiscriminately—–where there is the possibility that their consumption contributes to trafficking—should be liable to victims under a theory of negligence, although such liability should be limited in terms of time, geographical scope and amount.

The table of contents is:

Chapter 1                  Introduction

Chapter 2                  The ‘menu’, and the experience thus far

Chapter 3                  Restitution from traffickers

Chapter 4                  Restitution from the state

Chapter 5                  Clients’ liability for direct contact: battery and conversion

Chapter 6                  Clients’ negligence in contributing to trafficking: duty

     

Chapter 7                  Breach

Chapter 8                  Causation

Chapter 9                  Practical challenges: access to justice, evidence, recovery

Chapter 10                Conclusion: the promise of private law

Happy Reading,

-- 
Jason Neyers
Cassels Brock LLP Faculty Fellow in Contract Law
Associate Professor of Law
Faculty of Law
Western University
N6A 3K7
(519) 661-2111 x. 88435