Law Commons^™

Ai-Ing The Future: An Analysis Of Past Treaty Features In Regulating Innovative Technologies, Sophia Tammera

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between the specific features written into multilateral treaties and their success in regulating innovative technologies. It explores why detailed treaty provisions such as periodic reviews, trigger mechanisms, amendment provisions, and knowledge sharing are critical to the effectiveness of these international agreements. I argue that the presence of these features contributes significantly to a treaty's ability to adapt to changing circumstances, ensure transparency, and facilitate ongoing cooperation and collaboration among signatories. To test this claim, I completed an in-depth case study analysis of technologies like railroads, telegraphs, electricity, and nuclear weapons. The findings indicate that treaties …

Free Speech And Its Limits: An Exploration Of Tolerance In The Digital Age, Jamie Forte

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Humans have made remarkable strides in protecting and preserving free speech despite an overwhelming historical legacy of censorship and suppression of dissent. Given that history makes clear how easy it is to slide into authoritarianism and sacrifice our rights in the name of security, and given that we find ourselves frequently facing the temptation to do so, this is not an unreasonable position. If the United States is one of the few bastions of free speech in an otherwise unfree world, then we must defend this freedom vehemently, or so the argument goes. While this position is not an unreasonable …

“A Sea Of White Faces”: How Courtroom Portraits Undermine Justice In Virginia, Lauren Miller

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The presence of Confederate symbols and other reminders of white institutional power in courtrooms introduces a risk that impermissible factors such as implicit bias, conscious prejudice, and sympathy for white supremacy will harm litigants’ rights. I compiled data for 210 of 328 courts (64%) in the Commonwealth and found that there are more than 617 portraits on display in Virginia courtrooms. At least 357 portraits depict white men, six depict Black men, fifteen depict white women, and twenty-eight depict people who served in the Confederacy, either in the government or the Confederate States Army (CSA). At least fourteen different courts …

Welcoming The Game Changer Of Human Society: A Defense Of The Moral Permissibility And Obligations Of Human Genetic Engineering, Yongkang Li

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2018, a Chinese scientist, Jiankun He, announced the birth of two HIV-resistant babies through his experiment of human genetic engineering. This incidence has soon shocked the entire scientific community and invoked public outrage towards He’s corrupt moral integrity.

However, this event should also act as a harbinger to the human society that the technique of human genetic engineering is rapidly approaching maturity. In that case, how should we respond?

This thesis focuses on the moral issues surrounding human genetic engineering and advertises an accepting moral attitude to this booming technology. This thesis will first discuss the types of human …

Engendering Trans Inclusion In Interscholastic And Intercollegiate Athletics: A Critical Analysis Of Sex And Gender In Sports, Title Ix Protections Post-Bostock, And Intersectional Methods Of Antidiscrimination Law, Jack Mackey

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Following the legalization of gay marriage by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and the failure of so-called “bathroom bills” to gain widespread traction across the country, conservative advocacy groups have turned to the arena of locker rooms and school-sponsored sports to pursue legislative and legal action against the inclusion of transgender people in spaces according to their gender identities. This thesis takes up legal challenges presented in Hecox v. Little and Soule v. Connecticut in order to (re)articulate the means by which we understand the language of sex and gender in sports, the protections afforded to trans …

Interrogating Injustice: Carceral Feminism, Brock Turner, And The Dilemmas Of Seeking Accountability For Sexual Violence In Our Prison Nation, Willa Quinn Moffatt

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis uses the 2016 sexual assault case The People vs. Brock Turner to argue that there is no clear path for justice for sexual violence in the current criminal justice system while incarceration remains the primary form of punishment. I draw on court documents and the victim Chanel Miller's 2019 memoir Know My Name to inform my analysis.

I briefly review, as a necessary backdrop, how rape has historically been ignored in the criminal legal system as a serious crime and large-scale social problem and how this history is tied to anti-Black racism in the United States. I am …

Autocratic Influence In Democratic Transitions: How The Timing Of Constitutional Reform Impacts Democratic Consolidation, Benjamin Hotchner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Perhaps no document better symbolizes a nation-state than a written constitution. In particular, during the unstable period of transition between autocracy and democracy, the investment of political and cultural capital in creating an entirely new constitution reflects an expectation on the part of participants that constitutions can exercise independent and legitimate authority on citizens and government within its jurisdiction. Thus, as constitutions either prologue a period of democratic renewal (e.g South Africa, 1994) or constrain later democratic institutions (e.g. Chile, 1989), they offer important contributions to democratic theory (Mallios). This mixed-methodology study will attempt to explain how these processes used …

“All Is Quiet In Arlington”: The Desegregation Of Arlington County Public Schools And How We Remember It, Ella Benbow

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Brown v. Board of Education overturned the long-enforced “separate but equal” doctrine forcing school systems to decide exactly how much they would comply with the holding that segregated public schools were no longer constitutional. Several states, Virginia among them, relied on pupil placement boards to deny the transfer of many Black students to primarily white schools. Some localities’ violent resistance to any desegregation is still reflected in the prevalent de facto school segregation 66 years after Brown. My thesis examines the reaction of Arlington County, a small, liberal area just outside Washington, D.C. that boasts about being the first integrated …