Law Commons^™

Legal Mechanisms For Protecting The Earth From Climate Change: An Analysis Of Limitations, Current Trends And Emerging Alternatives, Abby Mei Frazier

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This thesis examines the obstacles that make environmental protection challenging to litigate, particularly in the context of climate change, and identifies the underlying reasons for these obstacles. I emphasize the significance of preserving nature and provide a historical overview of environmental conservation. Despite the pressing nature of climate change and environmental degradation, legal efforts to combat these issues have often yielded unsatisfying results due to a lack of transparency, accountability, and fair power dynamics. This study examines four U.S. climate litigation cases under the Freedom of Information Act, revealing a consistent pattern of inadequate transparency and accountability that creates an …

Litigation As Integration And Participation: The Role Of Lawsuits In The U.S. Environmental Justice Movement, Tomas Sebastian Forman

Senior Projects Spring 2022

What is, has been, and could be the role of litigation in the U.S. environmental justice movement? To what ends do Indigenous communities, federally-recognized tribes, and rural Black communities choose to engage with the U.S. legal system, an institution which has, over history, consistently subjugated and dispossessed them? How do these groups' particularistic relationships to natural and built environments, conceptions of justice and fairness, and understandings of what effective environmental regulation look like inform that choice? This paper draws from in-depth qualitative research to demonstrate the following things: (1) how environmental justice lawsuits differ from canonical environmental and civil rights …

Enemies, Allies, And Opportunities: The Politics Of Noblewomen’S Lawsuits In Early Modern Piedmont, Catherine Ferrari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation considers early modern law courts as political venues in which noble families not only asserted claims to wealth, property, and inheritance but also sought to enhance their reputation and influence. By studying the archives of elite families in Piedmont from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries, I argue that noblewomen used the law to gain a political voice, defending their legal claims against other family members in highly visible conflicts in which not only their property but their standing at the court of the duke of Savoy was at stake. These women exploited legal procedures and drew on …

Litigation, Legislation, And Love: The Comparative Efficacy Of Litigation And Legislation For The Expansion Of Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Civil Rights, Mallory Harrington

Honors College Theses

This research examines the comparative efficacy of federal appellate court decisions and federal legislation with regards to the furtherance of civil rights on the basis of sexual orientation. The research examines efficacy based upon the number of measures which have been implemented as well as the content of each measure. The research examines federal appellate and Supreme Court decisions, as well as adopted pieces of federal legislation since 1950. It also examines the likely causes of the disparities in efficacy that are indicated in this analysis. The findings of this research indicate that litigation has been much more effective at …

The Ethics Of Environmental Litigation, Jenna Marie Dibenedetto

Student Theses 2015-Present

Abstract

We are raised from the early days of our youth to distinguish right from wrong, evil from good. Though there are many careers that have easily distinguishable ethics from their day of creation, others require spend their entire professional careers floating in a grey area. Being a lawyer can leave you in limbo very often. The ethical battle between prosecuting people whose actions go against everything you believe in and defending someone who actions you struggle to rationalize, looking for a “nail in the coffin” or finding a way to pry it open can play a large role in …

Empty Chair At The Table: Bargaining, Costs And Litigation At The World Trade Organization, Felicia Anneita Grey

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the World Trade Organization (WTO) to test how, if at all, its Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) serves the needs of its members. More specifically, it probes why countries would join the institution, but do not use it if a trade dispute arises. To test this expectation, the study hypothesizes that exorbitant dispute settlement costs can inhibit litigation. This occurs, however, across all dyads and not just when developing and developed countries litigate.

The project uses mixed methods comprising an extensive form game, case studies and the information theory approach for comparative case analysis. The cases selected have …

Neuroimaging And Jury Decision Making: In Defense Of The Defense?, Alana A. Snyder

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Neurobiological evidence in the form of brain scans (MRI images, PET images, etc.) is being introduced with increasing frequency in the courtroom as potentially mitigating evidence in criminal cases as part of an attempt to show regions of neurological abnormality affecting a defendant’s decision-making or emotional control. Empirical studies have shown two biases associated with the presentation of such evidence. One of these biases resides in that laypeople’s interpretation of such evidence may be weighted too heavily towards scientific fact – as is DNA evidence – rather than an association between a specific crime, and a brain region and its …

The Allocation Of Burdens In Litigation Between First Nations And The Crown, Michael Wilfred Posluns

LLM Theses

No abstract provided.

The Law Comes To Campus: The Evolution And Current Role Of The Office Of The General Counsel On College And University Campuses, Jason A. Block

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Much has been written in the literature of higher education on the history and current role of presidents, provosts, and deans. However, higher education scholars have, for the most part ignored the role of institutional in-house attorneys on college and university campuses. Those who have written on the subject of institutional counsel have proffered the idea that in-house general counsel offices were established as a result of the increased regulation of higher education by state and federal governments, and litigation resulting from the faculty and student rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This project seeks to provide a detailed …