The Impact of the United States' Minimum Standards and Tier System
Through domestic legislation and national policy, the United States exerted severe pressure on the three Caribbean countries to enact antiÂtrafficking in persons legislation. However, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) 2000 did not itself provide a model for lawmaking.
The TVPA states that it �is the policy of the United States not to provide non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance to any government that: (1) does not comply with Minimum Standards for the elimination of trafficking; and (2) is not making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with such standards.’[651] [652] [653]A. The Minimum Standards
The Minimum Standards for countries of origin, transit or destination, or OTD Countries as they are called in the Act, are outlined in section 108 of the TVPA. Section 108(a) provides that:
1. The government of the country should prohibit severe forms of trafficking in persons and punish acts of such trafficking.
2. For the knowing commission of any act of sex trafficking involving force, fraud, coercion, or in which the victim of sex trafficking is a child incapable of giving meaningful consent, or of trafficking which includes rape or kidnapping or which causes a death, the government of the country should prescribe punishment commensurate with that for grave crimes, such as forcible sexual assault.
3. For the knowing commission of any act of a severe form of trafficking in persons, the government of the country should prescribe punishment that is sufficiently stringent to deter and that adequately reflects the heinous nature of the offense.
4. The government of the country should make serious and sustained efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons
In understanding the reasons for the introduction of anti-trafficking legislations in all three jurisdictions, the �collateral consequences’ rationale for state compliance with international obligations put forward by Oona Hathaway is relevant.[654] Put simply, developing states were obliged to support the international fight against human trafficking because of the assertion of political and economic pressure by the United States under the mandate of its domestic legislation — the TVPA.[655] [656] B. The United States Department of State produces an Annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, categorizing countries in four tiers based on their compliance with United States’ Minimum Standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons. Non-compliant states receive a negative �tier 3’ rating while more compliant states are dispersed between the Tier 2 watchlist, Tier 2 and Tier 1.8 The Tier 1 listing is the most favourable and includes countries whose governments fully comply with the Act’s Minimum Standards. The Tier 2 designation is for countries whose governments have not fully complied with the Act’s Minimum Standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards. Countries are placed on the Tier 2 watchlist if, in addition to this, (a) the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is increasing significantly, or (b) there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year, or (c) the determination that the country or territory is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with Minimum Standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year. The lowest level, Tier 3, is a designation for countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Minimum Standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. Countries placed in the lowest tier are threatened with economic sanctions in the form of withheld non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance from the United States.[657] This reinforces the economic stronghold of the United States over smaller developing countries, like those of the Caribbean, which are heavily dependent on United States economic aid. C. Caribbean Governments Respond to Tier 3 Listings Belize, Guyana and Jamaica reacted swiftly to the threats of economic sanctions and the United States blacklisting through Tier 3 listings. Critics have noted that prior to the blacklisting, little or no effort was made by the governments of Belize, Guyana and Jamaica to alleviate the problem of human trafficking.[662] During the debates on the legislation in Jamaica, Opposition Member of Parliament Olivia Grange expressed concern that it took the government five years to �move from the position where we recognize that human trafficking especially as it affects women and children exists’ by signing the United Nations Protocol to enacting legislation.[663] Like many others, she attributed the speed with which the Act was introduced solely to the US tier assessments.[664] She also questioned why the government was enacting legislation covering only one of the protocols, the human trafficking protocol, and not the other two dealing with migrant smuggling and trafficking in firearms.[665] Dr Peter Phillips, then minister of national security, rejected the claim that the legislation was in response to �any pressure or desire to please any other country.’ He said, �We do it and we bring it because the protection of the people of Jamaica warrants this legislation coming here.’[666] He justified the interest of the United States in the anti-trafficking campaigns of other countries as a manifestation of �international cooperation,’ which was necessary to successfully confront human trafficking in its international context.[667] Despite these protestations, other Caribbean government officials readily confirmed that legislation was prompted by tier placements.[668] Some government officials have expressed immense delight at an improved tier placement[669] or great distress at a slip in ranking.[670] The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belize, Godfrey Smith, who was charged with leading the debate on the Bill through Parliament, acknowledged plainly that the tier ranking was the sole motivating factor for the speedy drafting of the legislation. The impetus for the legislation was simple. The US government, based on flimsy data, placed Belize in the bottom-most category of countries that were taking measures to combat trafficking in persons. This happened without any notice to the government and we were shocked at it. Even the then US Ambassador to Belize at the time expressed surprise. If we did nothing, it meant that Belize stood to be affected by the withholding of different forms of aid to Belize by the US. We therefore quickly drafted legislation and set up a national committee to address the issue. We took it through all three readings of parliament without objection from the Opposition. Some months later we were upgraded to category 2.23 3.