Spotlight on Human Trafficking: New Law and Next Steps

Michael Houghton, Morris Nichols Commercial Law Counseling Group partner, was a featured panelist for Spotlight on Human Trafficking: New Law and Next Steps at the 2013 ABA Annual Meeting.  Mike was joined on the panel by ABA President Laurel Bellows.  Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy attended the session and spoke on the issue.

Kennedy described the “dehumanizing process” of slavery that Frederick Douglass articulated in his autobiography two centuries ago. “From a historical perspective, we can somehow understand the injustice of it better than the injustice in our own time.”  For Kennedy, attention to human trafficking and what can be done now to attack the problem is critical.

The August 11 session panel focused on the potential adoption, by the ABA House of Delegates, of the Uniform Act on Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking.  The Act was drafted by the Uniform Law Commission and was a priority initiative during Mike's 2-year term as its president.  The ABA approved the Act the following day, August 12.