Why we should long-arm human rights laws

In BushAmerica, it's illegal to buy too much cold medicine, but it's perfectly legal to exploit slave labor (as long as the slavery occurs abroad).

Any time there's slavery, there's unspeakable greed and conceit somewhere down the line. Unless we can acquire the tools to overcome it, most of us are treated as ballast for someone else to Make Money. But there's varying degrees of this exploitation, and the worst forms receive too little attention.

While most of us learn to conserve and be thrifty, powerful rulers and their cohorts live a life of extravagance built on the backs of people who work hard for very little or nothing. But I have no doubt that even average people unknowingly buy items in which slavery played a role in their production. Whenever an antislavery protocol is adopted, the industry covered by it is always given a few years to enforce it. I see no excuse why it can't be enforced immediately. Yet even after the deadline, slavery persists in the industry, as if the rules were never adopted.

If even one candy bar made from cocoa farmed by child slaves is sold in America - 7 years after the Harkin-Engel Protocol was adopted - that's a problem.

Countries have made efforts to prosecute those who exploit slave labor. But often they don't have enough resources, because the systems there are burdened. So I'd like to see the U.S. pass a law that makes American antislavery laws applicable in other countries when goods sold in America have slave-made ingredients or parts. These other lands may have extradition treaties with the U.S., and I guarantee you that if I was a country where slavery was occurring, I'd want the slave-drivers to be punished in every country where the slave-made products were distributed. If overseas exploiters can't be held criminally liable by the U.S., then they should damn well be held civilly liable.

Penalties should apply to every party that exploited the slave labor. From the overseas plantation or factory owner to the American corporation, all should be held responsible. I'm wondering why we can't already prosecute a U.S.-based corporation even without a long-arm law.

If global greed merchants think it pays to exploit workers, the problem is just going to get worse. And it'll get worse for you too, not just someone in a faraway land.