Digital Commons Network^™

Measuring Party Polarization In Congress: Lessons From Congressional Participation In Amicus Curiae, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

First, I will detail the prevalence of party polarization and how party polarization has limited congressional interest in its institutional prerogatives vis-à-vis the executive. Second, I will discuss my research findings governing congressional amicus briefs. I will consider patterns in bipartisan filings over time (comparing the less polarized 1974–1985 Supreme Court terms with the more polarized 2002–2013 terms). I will also consider the types of issues lawmakers and their institutional counsel have pursued in their filings. This investigation will reveal a decline in briefs in institutional cases and an upswing in briefs on politically salient issues that divide the parties …

Three Grotian Theories Of Humanitarian Intervention, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

This Article explores three theories of humanitarian intervention that appear in, or are inspired by, the writings of Hugo Grotius. One theory asserts that natural law authorizes all states to punish violations of the law of nations, irrespective of where or against whom the violations occur, to preserve the integrity of international law. A second theory, which also appears in Grotius’s writings, proposes that states may intervene as temporary legal guardians for peoples who have suffered intolerable cruelties at the hands of their own state. Each of these theories has fallen out of fashion today based on skepticism about their …

The Last Generation: How The Advent Hope Defines Us, Skip Bell

Faculty Publications

The term “last generation” evokes differing mental images. For some, the term introduces the horrifying reality of earth’s inability to infinitely sustain life; for others, the devastating destruction of nuclear warfare; and for others, an impending cosmic calamity. Ironically, for those who anticipate the return of Christ, these fearful predictions are themselves affirmations of Christ’s return, and they sustain our hope to be among the last generation.

Farming In The City!, Skip Bell

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Value Of Adventist Scholarship: Striving For Excellence And Advancing In Truth, Jiri Moskala

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Religious Rights In Historical, Theoretical And International Context: Hobby Lobby As A Jurisprudential Anomaly, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

The United States has a long and complicated history concerning religious rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., has done little to clear up the jurisprudence in this field. Although the decision will doubtless generate a great deal of commentary as a matter of constitutional and statutory law, the better approach is to consider whether and to what extent the majority and dissenting opinions reflect the fundamental principles of religious liberty. Only in that context can the merits of such a novel decision be evaluated free from political and other biases.

This …

Human Impact Overwhelms Long-Term Climate Control Of Weathering And Erosion In Southwest China, Shiming Wan, Samuel Toucanne, Peter D. Clift, Debo Zhao, Germain Bayon, Zhaojie Yu, Guanqiang Cai, Xuebo Yin, Sidonie Révillon, Dawei Wang, Anchun Li, Tiegang Li

Faculty Publications

© 2015 Geological Society of America. During the Holocene there has been a gradual increase in the influence of humans on Earth systems. High-resolution sedimentary records can help us to assess how erosion and weathering have evolved in response to recent climatic and anthropogenic disturbances. Here we present data from a high-resolution (~75 cm/k.y.) sedimentary archive from the South China Sea. Provenance data indicate that the sediment was derived from the Red River, and can be used to reconstruct the erosion and/or weathering history in this river basin. Accelerator mass spectrometry 14C dating provides direct age control and reveals coherent …

On The Characteristics Of Misaligned Journal Bearings, Joon Young Jang, Michael M. Khonsari

Faculty Publications

Journal bearing misalignment arise generally from the shaft deformation under load, deflection of the shaft, manufacturing and assembly errors, improper installation, and asymmetric loading. During operations, misalignment has a considerable effect on the static and dynamic performances. It could cause wear, vibration and even system failure. In this article, a literature review of misalignment of the journal bearings is presented. The basic theory for the misalignment and some results for the circular journal bearing are also presented to show the general trends of the misalignment.

The Law And Politics Of The Charles Taylor Case, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Faculty Publications

This article discusses a rare successful prosecution of a head of state by a modern international criminal court. The case involved former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Taylor, who was charged and tried by the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (“SCSL”), was convicted in April 2013 for planning and aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious international humanitarian law violations. He was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment. The SCSL Appeals Chamber upheld the historic conviction and sentence in September 2013. Taylor is currently serving his sentence in Great Britain. This article, from an insider who …

Sixteenth-Century Soil Carbon Sequestration Rates Based On Mexican Land-Grant Documents, Andrew Sluyter, Richard Hunter

Faculty Publications

A significant gap in our understanding of global change involves the linkages between historical land-use and land-cover change (LULCC), Holocene terrestrial carbon (C) pool fluxes, and climate change. To address that research problem, this method uses land grants for sheep ranches awarded in early colonial (1521–1620 CE) Mexico to quantify the amount of land converted from cropland to pastureland. Soil is the largest terrestrial C pool, and converting cropland to pastureland significantly increases soil C sequestration rates, thereby reducing atmospheric C. The land grants and associated archival documents contain location-specific information about soils, vegetation, hydrology, and other variables that make …

African Fire Cultures, Cattle Ranching, And Colonial Landscape Transformations In The Neotropics, Andrew Sluyter, Chris Duvall

Faculty Publications

Fire regimes emerge partly from human activities that reflect cultural-ecological knowledge of the relationships among fire, vegetation, grazing, climate, and other variables, as well as social relations. More knowledge of such “fire cultures,” past and present, therefore remains necessary to better understand the causes and persistent consequences of landscape burning. In the neotropics, people have used fire for centuries to manage livestock pastures. Conventional wisdom has long posited that such practices derived solely from antecedent European and indigenous, Native American fire cultures. Analysis of accounts of rangeland burning from throughout the neotropics during colonial times, however, demonstrates that ranchers incorporated …

Cofeeding Intra- And Interspecific Transmission Of An Emerging Insect-Borne Rickettsial Pathogen, Lisa D. Brown, Rebecca C. Christofferson, Kaikhushroo H. Banajee, Fabio Del Piero, Lane D. Foil, Kevin R. Macaluso

Faculty Publications

© 2015 The Authors. Molecular Ecology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Cat fleas (Ctenocephalides felis) are known as the primary vector and reservoir of Rickettsia felis, the causative agent of flea-borne spotted fever; however, field surveys regularly report molecular detection of this infectious agent from other blood-feeding arthropods. The presence of R. felis in additional arthropods may be the result of chance consumption of an infectious bloodmeal, but isolation of viable rickettsiae circulating in the blood of suspected vertebrate reservoirs has not been demonstrated. Successful transmission of pathogens between actively blood-feeding arthropods in the absence of a disseminated …

Economies Of Violence, John Protevi

Faculty Publications

I discuss "economies of violence," comparing non-state (acephalic forager bands and horticultural chiefdoms) and state societies. Capital punishment and tolerated personal revenge in forager bands is both anti-war and anti-state, while some chiefdoms practice war as an anti-state practice.

Bond V. United States: Choosing The Lesser Of Two Evils, David L. Sloss

Faculty Publications

In Bond v. United States, Carol Anne Bond used toxic chemicals in an attempt to poison her husband’s lover. The federal government prosecuted Bond for violating the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998 (the “CWC Act”). Congress enacted the CWC Act to implement U.S. obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a multilateral treaty signed in 1993 that is designed to address the global threat posed by chemical weapons. Bond challenged the constitutional validity of the federal statute and urged the Court to overrule Missouri v Holland, a 1920 case holding that the combination of the Treaty Power and …

Law, Rhetoric, Strategy: Russia And Self-Determination Before And After Crimea, Christopher J. Borgen

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On March 16, 2014 the residents of Crimea woke up in Ukraine, as they had every morning since the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991. That evening they went to sleep in what claimed to be the independent Republic of Crimea. They lived in that putative country for the next day. On March 18, the leaders of Crimea signed a treaty merging their day-old country into Russia.

Much had taken place before these three days in March 2014. There were arguments about Ukraine associating with the European Union (EU) or joining a Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. …

A Snohomish Telling Of “The Seal Hunters”, Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

Oral-based indigenous cultures have stories that persist over time, though some variation may exist in various details and in overall context. Related cultures in particular have similar stories, and assessing the similarities and differences across their tellings of these stories provides valuable historical and cultural background. In the case of endangered languages and cultures, every telling of every story provides important insight. This article presents a recently discovered archived account of a Snohomish version of “The Seal Hunters”, a captivating story that has many variant forms across Salish cultures. The story was written down in the nineteenth century by an …

Bond V. United States: Choosing The Lesser Of Two Evils, David Sloss

Faculty Publications

In Bond v. United States, Carol Anne Bond used toxic chemicals in an attempt to poison her husband’s lover. The federal government prosecuted Bond for violating the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998 (the “CWC Act”). Congress enacted the CWC Act to implement U.S. obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a multilateral treaty signed in 1993 that is designed to address the global threat posed by chemical weapons. Bond challenged the constitutional validity of the federal statute and urged the Court to overrule Missouri v Holland, a 1920 case holding that the combination of the Treaty Power and …

Self-Perception Of Disability And Prospects For Employment Among U.S. Veterans, Christopher L. Griffin Jr., Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Normative Stakeholder Capitalism: Getting From Here To There, Marc-Charles Ingerson, Bradley R. Agle, Thomas Donalson, Paul C. Godfrey, Jared D. Harris, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Adrian Keevil, Ronald K. Mitchell, Robert A. Phillips

Faculty Publications

The capability of normative declarations to alter outcomes is well accepted. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident ... ,' 'inalienable rights, ... life, liberty, ... pursuit of happiness, .. .' and similar statements contain within them social energy that inspires the mind, justifies new modes of thought, and enables change .... Normative discourse, we therefore believe, must continue to be endemic to stakeholder theory and research if scholars want this theory to flourish and fulfill its aims as a theory of the firm-not the least of which is attending to the long-run interests of both the business corporation and …

The St. Clair Family Story In America: John Sinkler (C1630-1700) To Fairy St. Clair Gibson, Lawrence W. Onsager

Faculty Publications

This book traces the St. Clair family from Scotland to the New Hampshire frontier in 1650. John Sinkler was sold by his English captors during the English Civil War as an indentured servant. The first five generations of the St. Clair family in America was spent in New Hampshire. James Sinclair/St. Clair (1757-1836) fought with Whitcomb's Rangers and the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. After the Revolutionary War, this branch of the family moved to New York State, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas , Oklahoma, and finally to the states of Washington and Oregon. Fairy St. Clair Gibson's family joined the …

The Politics Of Narrative: Law And The Representation Of Mexican Criminality, Deborah Weissman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Culture: Human Rights Universalisms Versus Religious And Cultural Relativism In The Activism For Gender Justice, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Droughts, Floods, And Wildfires: Paleo Perspectives On Disaster Law In The Anthropocene, Ryan Stoa

Faculty Publications

Humanity’s impact on the earth has become so pronounced that momentum is building toward adopting a new term for the modern geological age — the “Anthropocene.” The term signifies that human activity has reached a scale that it is now a planetary force capable of shaping ecosystems and natural processes. And yet, anthropocentric natural resources management and environmental lawmaking in the United States reveals a lack of control in managing natural systems and fostering resilience to extreme events. These systems do not easily conform to the whims of reactionary environmental policies. Droughts, floods, and wildfires, in particular, are often conceptualized …

Webster's Geometry; Or, The Irreducible Duchess, Benjamin Bertram Phd

Faculty Publications

This study of geometry, gender, and skepticism in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi argues that the play leaves us in a hall of mirrors, a horror show of optical tricks, delusion, narcissism, and perspectivism from which there seems to be no escape, no masterpiece of God’s creation upholding reality beyond sensory images. In the absence of a transcendental referent, the Duchess’ willful and fearful journey «into the wilderness» – the life she leads as a result of her furtive marriage to her steward Antonio – becomes an alternative to both the public sphere mapped by divine patterns of order …

Henry Wirz And The Tragedy Of Andersonville: A Question Of Responsibility, Albert Winkler

Faculty Publications

Henry Wirz was the most controversial Swiss American. Born in Zurich, Wirz migrated to the United States and joined the Confederacy at the outbreak of the Civil War. He was assigned to oversee the military prison at Andersonville, Georgia, which had a very high death rate. Following the war, Wirz was arrested and tried for war crimes. The trial was a travesty of justice. Many of his supposed crimes were milder punishments than the Union inflicted on its own soldiers. The court allowed hearsay evidence, Wirz was no allowed to call key witnesses for his defense, and many leaders of …

Space Separatism: Degree Of Differentiation, Luke R. Stover, Alan A. Johnson

Faculty Publications

Space is so important that the DOD recognizes it as one of five domains in which US forces operate (the other four are land, sea, air, and information). In 2001 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated the Department of the Air Force (DAF) the “Executive Agent for Space for the DOD.” Given the national importance of space activities, the formation of a separate space force has been a topic of persistent discussion in academic and doctrinal circles ever since the United States first entered the space age. Proponents of a separate force argue that because space is an inherently unique …

Love Your Enemy? Reflections At The Centenary Of World War I, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Humanitarian Law Teaching Supplement: Volume 2 - International Criminal Law, Beth Van Schaack

Faculty Publications

This supplement is designed to provide comprehensive yet focused materials on international humanitarian law (IHL), or the law of armed conflict, for inclusion in other substantive courses, such as public international law, international criminal law, or foreign relations law. The supplement is divided into four main substantive chapters on IHL—when does IHL apply, conflict classification, and means and methods of combat—with an emphasis on how these concepts would arise in a legal proceeding, such as a war crimes prosecution. Each chapter contains an introduction to the main IHL concepts; cases and primary source materials drawn from the jurisprudence of the …

System Safety Principles: A Multidisciplinary Engineering Perspective, Joseph Saleh, Karen Marais, Francesca Favaro

Faculty Publications

System safety is of particular importance for many industries. Broadly speaking, it refers to the state or objective of striving to sustainably ensure accident prevention through actions on multiple safety levers (technical, organizational, and regulatory). While complementary to risk analysis, it is distinct in one important way: risk analysis is anticipatory rationality examining the possibility of adverse events (or accident scenarios), and the tools of risk analysis support and in some cases quantify various aspects of this analysis effort. The end-objective of risk analysis is to help identify and prioritize risks, inform risk management, and support risk communication. These tools …

Politics Then And Now, In Maine And The Nation Conversations With The Sages, Richard Barringer, Kenneth Palmer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.