{"id":10766,"date":"2025-03-04T15:08:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T20:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/?p=10766"},"modified":"2025-03-04T15:35:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T20:35:23","slug":"legal-prostitution-a-crime-against-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2025\/03\/legal-prostitution-a-crime-against-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Prostitution: A Crime Against Humanity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catharine A. MacKinnon & Max Waltman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read full article<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Abstract<\/h3>\n

Not far from the Labor Court, a woman in a snake-skin dress sits next to a wooden outhouse. The city has set up these so-called labor boxes for prostitutes. There, they are supposed to work and do their business simultaneously. It smells like feces and urine. She had just given a john a blowjob for twenty euros, the prostituted woman says\u2014the drug addicts would do it for five euros. The woman says she\u2019s saving for a house for herself and her six-year-old son. \u201cAt some point, the time will come when we in Germany will be ashamed of what we have done to these young women from Eastern Europe,\u201d says Leni Breymaier, Bundestag MP for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She has been campaigning for a sex purchasing ban in Germany for years. \u201cTo me, this is the slave trade of our time.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 Der Spiegel<\/em>, June 23, 2023.1<\/a><\/sup>\u2020 Katrin Langhans, Der Spiegel, June 23, 2023.<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

[B]ecause crimes against humanity occur in peacetime, as well as during armed conflict, addressing them through prevention and punishment can play a key role in staunching . . . an \u201catrocity cascade\u201d before it descends into unstoppable conflict and overwhelming criminality. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>\u2014 Leila Nadya Sadat (2022)<\/em>.\u00a02<\/a><\/sup>\u2021 Leila Nadya Sadat, The Academy and War Crime Prosecutions: Little Progress in the Sixth Committee on Crimes Against Humanity, 54 Case W. Res. J. Int\u2019l L. 89, 91 (2022) (discussing distinction between prevention and deterrence, the former being broader, in Bosn. & Herz. v. Serb. & Montenegro, Judgment, 2007 I.C.J. 43 (Feb. 26)). Professor Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at Washington University St. Louis and served as the Special Advisor on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor 2012\u20132023.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cover image credit\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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