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The inspiration for the paper is a regional rail system proposal published in 2001 by the Maryland Transit Authority (MTA) of the Maryland Department of Transportation. This proposal, The Baltimore Region Rail System Plan (the Plan), calls for the construction of a regional rail system, modeled on the DC Metro. I believe that this rail system would have an enormously beneficial impact on the Baltimore region, by promoting local economic development as well as interregional competitiveness. In addition, it might help to promote cross-jurisdictional cooperation, which in turn would foster a more flexible regional economic system. In a broader view, it would help transition the Baltimore region away from its dark history of social and economic decline and towards a brighter future of global competitiveness based on New Economy industries. My analysis will both examine the existing support and opposition to the rail system, and make a case for its implementation.

I will begin my paper with an introduction to the Baltimore region’s geography, economy, and government. This section will include an overview of transportation governance in Maryland as a whole. I will then describe in more detail the contents of the Plan and the existing public transportation infrastructure in the Baltimore region, especially within Baltimore City.

The potential implementation of a mass rail transit system naturally generates many important political and financial questions. I will begin the analytical section of my paper by cataloguing the most important regional transportation stakeholders and describing their positions on the potential transit system. To do so, I will draw from the literature on regional transportation, documents published by various institutions, and, most importantly, a series of interviews I conducted with public officials, business leaders, community group leaders, lobbyists and transit advocates.

The various transportation stakeholders make the case for the transit system in a variety of ways; I will attempt to arrange these various arguments into a coherent framework based on their intellectual underpinnings. As we will see, the arguments fall in to the related categories of local economic development, interregional competitiveness, and regional cooperation. In other words, there are local economic growth, national and international competitiveness and political arguments to be made on behalf of a regional transit system. Having catalogued these arguments, I will turn to analyzing their validity and providing evidence to support them. I will conclude by positing how consensus might be built among various stakeholders, and finally speculate briefly on the best strategy for achieving implementation. To build consensus among the region’s many interests, the transit system can not be viewed as simply a tool for moving people around. Rather, it must be viewed as a crucial step towards creating a new 21st century Baltimore region, one that can compete globally for talented individuals and cutting edge firms. This is a vision that can unite a divisive region, and build the support for the massive government investment that will be required to build the transit system.

This paper is intended to be helpful to public officials, nonprofit leaders, and other potential policy entrepreneurs operating in the Baltimore region. To the best of my knowledge, no papers have examined all the arguments for the Baltimore transit system or examined the positions of the various stakeholders. In fact, no advocacy papers have even attempted a comprehensive evaluation. This paper adds to the existing literature by bringing together all existing arguments, making new ones, and detailing the thinking of the institutions and individuals that will ultimately have to support a mass rail transit system if it is to be implemented. The paper may also be of use to policymakers in other regions who are looking to build consensus across metropolitan areas.

Over the past two decades, the United States has waged an increasingly successful campaign to strengthen international intellectual property standards.  This is an example of “asymmetrical harmonization,” in which regionalism and multilateralism no longer move countries towards integration, but instead shift international policy to that of the most powerful bargainer.  In a progression through four stages of policy development, the U.S. has learned to use a combination of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral policy instruments in order to both coerce through trade pressure and lure with incentives those developing countries that have been resist to policy harmonization.  Developing countries, although vulnerable to legislative change, have been successful in resisting reform through a process of lax enforcement, delay, and domestic industry resistance.  The U.S. needs to shift its strategy in two arenas.  First, the U.S. must move towards limiting coercion in lieu of more cooperative partnerships when dealing with developing countries, since a country’s willingness to reform leads to better enforcement.  Secondly, the U.S. needs to differentiate its IPRs policies in order to maximize the actual reduction in infringement while limiting developing concerns over drugs costs, biotechnology, and social resistance to reform.  By working to improve the international perception of IPRs, the U.S. can increase the welfare of both U.S. firms and developing countries.

Two weeks after murdering over 150 unarmed protestors and brutally raping over 40 women, the ruling junta in Guinea announced that it had signed a $7 billion resource-for-investment deal with a Chinese company, the China International Fund.  Reporters and commentators offered dire prognostications about the support such an investment could provide to the Guinean junta as the international community stepped up its censure of the regime.  The uproar over the investment raises two questions this essay addresses: First, has the deal indeed served as a “lifeline” to the Guinean military regime?  And second, what can the case of Guinea tell us about the way the international community should handle investments in the natural resources of countries ruled by regimes that show no respect for basic human rights?

The answer to the first question, in brief, is no: China has not provided the junta with international support, money, or military assistance.  Three main forces have moved Guinea toward this outcome.  The first is the demonstration by the international community (excluding China) that it has increasingly less tolerance for authoritarian regimes that do not respect basic human rights.  Second, and somewhat less significantly, African leaders have begun to push back against the Chinese presence in Africa, demanding more transparent and responsible investments.  And third, the Chinese have realized that they have economic incentives not to pour too much money upfront into unstable regimes in which a new government might demand to renegotiate contracts.  The upshot of these three forces is that international pressure matters: while China focuses primarily on economic incentives, it is also vulnerable to reputational risks.

In answer to the second question, condemnation of investments like the one in Guinea will lose moral force unless the international community itself takes steps to avoid its own role in perpetuating the “resource privilege,” in which rulers of authoritarian countries are given tacit permission by the international community to sell that country’s natural resources, often for their own personal gain.  Scholars and policymakers have tried to address this incentive problem with a variety of schemes — including unilateral and multilateral legislation, a “trust-and-tariff” mechanism, shared sovereignty entities, and constitutional amendments banning illegitimate resource transfers — that vary in their theoretical and practical strength.  The first step in any sort of plan, however, must be acceptance of responsibility by the international community for the part it plays in maintaining the resource privilege.

This essay has placed before its readers many of the arguments for and against holding terrorism trials in federal courts.  Based on the evidence developed in this essay, most of the arguments against the use of federal courts have been shown to fall.  There have not been significant or novel problems relating to speedy and public trial requirements, availability of defense counsel, politicization of jurors, pretrial publicity and bias, the authentication of evidence, Miranda warnings, illegal searches and seizures, the introduction of classified material, security, orientation of the system, or judicial expertise.[1] 

“For all of their difficulties, civilian trials are superior to their most likely replacements, military commissions.”[2]  There are numerous political and legal grounds for rejecting military commissions.  Any claims of military commissions’ supposed convenience or greater likelihood for “successful convictions” have been disproved by their track record; federal courts have proven their ability to handle hundreds of terrorism cases effectively, while military commissions can be considered as having failed more often than not.  Military commissions and a framing of “war” have strengthened terrorists at our expense, reduced international cooperation with our courts, and weakened the rule of law.  Trying terrorists in federal courts is the most prudent and appropriate method of rectifying these harms.

The primary arguments that do provide reason for pause include the potentially higher monetary costs and the possibility that accused terrorists’ incorporation into the system might weaken the protections afforded to other criminals.  The costs are not necessarily higher for federal courts than other viable options, and the effects on the system will not necessarily be negative; yet these issues are worthy of continued inspection and deliberation.

In examining the comparative costs of federal trials and military commissions, society would do best to rely on trial security experts rather than the less trustworthy claims of politicians that lack even a basic report of their foundation.  It is more than reasonable to expect precise data and cost estimates to elucidate the large figures that have been thrown around as political rhetoric in heated yet potentially groundless debates.  Yet it seems, as with many of the arguments presented by critics in this essay, that some are driven to their arguments not by reality, but rather by mere political utility.  As a recent New York Times editorial criticizes,

An election is coming, so the Republicans are trying to scare Americans by making it appear as if the Democrats don’t care about catching or punishing terrorists.  It’s nonsense, of course, but effective.  The be-very-afraid approach helped former President George W. Bush ram laws through Congress that chipped away at Americans’ rights…Congress should be helping the president fix those problems, not piling up sound bites for November.[3]

As explained in this essay, costs have been a continuing hurdle for attempts to improve the criminal justice system, and terrorism trials in federal courts may not be an exception.  Yet it would seem that given the enormous political, ethical, and legal costs of military commissions, Americans are not unlikely to garner the additional resources that might be required for federal trials.

As for the effects of terrorism cases on other criminals’ trials, it seems it would be helpful to examine the historical trends in England, as well as other countries that have had more extensive experience with terrorists similar to Al Qaeda.[4]  A careful analysis of past terrorism cases in England as well as the current workings of the system would serve to elucidate these matters and potential effects on the American system.  However, it is clear that even with such information, it would be difficult to predict the long-term effects on the American system due to differences in national jurisprudence, context, and circumstances. 

Despite minor imperfections that result from the presence of jurors, the simple yet all-important fact that the jury system is based on the idea of impartiality, which is wholly lacking in military commissions, strongly suggests their use in terrorism cases.[5]  Respect for the rule of law and a dedication to justice have been fortified by the Obama administration’s attempts to pursue terrorism trials in federal courts; as Harold Koh reported at a recent American Bar Association event, “The administration’s changes…have been meaningful.  The United States…can now defend its national-security policies

as fully compliant with domestic and international law under common and universal standards, not double standards.”[6]

Many judges and attorneys have been outspoken in their confidence to continue to successfully manage terrorism trials.  In the case of United States v. Ressam (2005), Judge John Coughenour declared, “Our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart.  We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections.”[7]  Judge Coughenour further stressed that Mr. Ressam, a foreigner intent on killing Americans, “received an effective, vigorous defense, and the opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 ordinary citizens,” and that the entire proceeding took place “in the sunlight of a public trial.  There was no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.”[8]  After the Ressam sentencing hearing, U.S. Attorney John McKay said he “agreed with the judge’s assessment that the U.S. legal system could handle cases such as Ressam’s.”[9]  Mr. McKay added, “The sentence sent an important message to would-be terrorists around the world,” that “in the United States a fair trial will be given…and where it is found that terrorism was committed, a lengthy prison sentence will be imposed.”[10]  Earlier, in sentencing Richard C. Reid to life in prison, Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court in Boston expressed his conviction that terrorists must be treated as criminals and tried in federal courts: Judge Young  “spoke scornfully of the notion that the defendant was somehow ‘a soldier in any war…You are not an enemy combatant.  You are a terrorist.’  And what we do with terrorists, he said, is ‘hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.’”[11]  Even the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, a famously challenging case which dealt with singular issues due to the defendant’s assertion of his right to defend himself in court and continued efforts to make a mockery of the American justice system, Judge Leonie Brinkema strongly defended the federal judiciary as the proper forum for terrorism trials and has emerged as an impassioned advocate for this cause.[12]  Rudy Giuliani, after Mr. Moussaoui’s trial, said, “I was in awe of our system.  It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial.”[13]  The words of these judges and lawyers demonstrate professionals’ commitment and confidence in the federal courts, which ought to assist the American public in dismissing lingering doubts.[14] 

Terrorism defendants are not predestined to receive unfair trials.  They need not be treated as Joseph K. in Franz Kafka’s The Trial, who was arrested “without having done anything wrong,” tried by an appallingly inaccessible, unpredictable, and incomprehensible system, and executed “like a dog.”[15]  To prevent this unnecessary and unacceptable treatment, those accused of terrorism should be tried in the light of day.  They must be brought to the established, transparent, reputable, and successful federal courts, where protections ensure that individuals receive fair treatment and that the system promotes accuracy and convicts the guilty while freeing the wrongly accused.  And there are certainly individuals who have been wrongfully accused; of the 779 imprisoned in Guantánamo since 2000, 705 have been released or cleared for release.[16]  It behooves the government to pursue these values, thereby supporting the American rule of law and fortifying important and deserved confidence in the American justice system.

These values have long been part of the American way.  "The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients is at least as old as John Adams's representation of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre."[17]  After the 1770 Boston Massacre, where British soldiers had fired on American civilians in a clash that helped spark the American Revolution, the American public was outraged.  Rather than lock them away indefinitely, or punish them without due process, those British soldiers were afforded a fair trial.  Two were convicted and the rest were acquitted.  John Adams, who agreed to assist in the defense of these extensively unpopular figures, declared in his closing statement, “’Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.  Nor is the law less stable than the fact…To your candor and justice, I submit the prisoners and their case.’  The best weapon we have against terrorists is not our passions.  It is the rule of law.”[18] 

As Mr. McCarthy has said, “Trials are won every bit as much outside as inside the courtroom.”[19]  The United States must do what it can to win these cases, not by taking shortcuts to potentially erroneous convictions and shortchanging the accused and the American people of the challenges and benefits essential to the rule of law, but by pursing a path that promotes accuracy and justice in the federal courtroom. To reiterate the quotation with which this essay started.

No description can do justice to how intense, rewarding, and preposterous a terrorism trial is. The patina of danger and death hang over the proceedings. It is a thrill and a source of patriotic pride to observe the world’s greatest legal system grant the full flower of due process to our committed enemies and to see them, nonetheless, brought to heel.[20]

In 1964, the United States Supreme Court instituted the “one person, one vote”principle in the landmark Reynolds v. Sims case. The ruling sought to establish legislative districts of equal population sizes so that every citizen’s vote would have the same weight in the election of their representatives.1 When a legislative district is under-populated, its citizens have disproportionately large voting power compared to the citizens of other districts, whose voting power is diluted. In the majority opinion for Reynolds v. Sims, Chief Justice Earl Warren explained the deleterious effects of these unevenly apportioned legislative districts on democracy, arguing that “...the right of suffrage can be denied by a

debasement or a dilution of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as wholly prohibiting the free exercise of this franchise.”2 One cause of unevenly apportioned districts was gerrymandering, the practice of purposely drawing legislative districts to increase the voting power of certain populations for politically strategic reasons.  Although Supreme Court and legislative action have sought to uphold the “one person, one vote” principle over the years, vote dilution continues to occur across the country as the result of politically strategic gerrymandering that goes unnoticed or unchallenged. For example, changes in census and prison policy over the past two decades have led to a new, particularly insidious form of gerrymandering based around prisons. At the time of each decennial census, every incarcerated person is counted as a resident of the prison, and thus the district, where he or she lives. As prisoners in most states cannot vote, the unincarcerated residents of legislative districts with prisons have more voting power than do the residents of districts that do not have prisons within their boundaries.

Recognizing the importance of the “one person, one vote” principle, advocates and legislators have fought to count prisoners as residents of their pre-incarceration home communities for purposes of redistricting. Although their cause often garners substantial popular and legislative support, they still face significant opposition from incumbent politicians who wish to preserve their relatively small district sizes and keep supportive non-prisoner constituents in their original districts. Because prison-based gerrymandering is a highly technical issue that is most relevant during the decennial census and redistricting processes, advocates also confront the challenge of maintaining interest in and support for their work.

 In this paper, I will examine efforts to end prison-based gerrymandering in Maryland,Delaware, and New York with a view to understanding how advocates and legislators brought about successful legislation. While the previously mentioned obstacles to advocacy can endanger legislative success, advocates fight to overcome opposition by developing a communications strategy that emphasizes how prison-based gerrymandering undermines the “one person, one vote” principle, explaining the technical ease of remediating prison-based gerrymandering, and exercising high levels of perseverance and preparedness in obtaining the support of elected officials.

 To begin, I will provide a brief history of gerrymandering in the United States as well as an overview of the prison-based gerrymandering issue. Next, I will explain the political science framework that I will use to analyze prison-based gerrymandering advocacy efforts. Finally, I will provide detailed case studies of the efforts in Maryland, Delaware and New York. I will conclude by situating the Maryland, Delaware and New York cases in an expanded political and civic context.

An investment in the education of our nation’s youth is arguably one of the most important investments a person, community, state, or nation is able to make. It is an investment in human capital that is expected to payoff in future prosperity of the economy.However, this investment is not always equal, as some communities are wealthier and thus
have a broader tax base from which to fund education. It seems unfair that a young child’s access to education is dependant largely on the community in which he or she lives. The purpose of this paper is to explore the history, the national trends, and a specific example of judicial attempts to equalize educational opportunity for all students.

The first portion of this paper will discuss the history of judicial challenges to education funding laws. Since the 1970s multiple attempts have been made, with varying success, to overturn unequal systems of financing education. These attempts have used the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, individual state constitution’s equal protection clauses, and, most recently, state education clauses. This has led to 19 states overturning their methods of education finance.

These court rulings and changing education finance systems have been studied in academia, and scholars have uncovered many national trends. The second part of this essay will provide information on what trends the most prominent and respected of these scholars have found. In general, they found that a court overturned education finance system generally leads to an equalization of district spending across a state. This equalization usually “levels up” lower spending schools instead of bringing down high spending ones. This leveling up of spending generally was found to lead to a similar leveling up of student performance.

The final, and most substantial, section of this paper provides an original, statistical case study of what is currently happening in the state of Vermont. Vermont is an example of a state that imposed a new, court ordered, radical, and progressive educational equalization policy. This policy was imposed in 1997 in response to the Vermont Supreme Court case Brigham v State. Vermont provides an excellent opportunity to conduct original research because it is an example of a state which imposed a radical policy that, due to its relatively recent imposition, has not yet received extensive research. This paper will find that Vermont’s radical policy, called Act 60, generally corroborates many of the national trends that scholars found in their national surveys. Act 60 has caused an equalization of school spending across the state, it has done this by bringing the spending levels of the poorer schools closer to the spending levels of the richer schools, and it has equalized performance on statewide assessment tests. Although, there has been a large backlash to the extremely progressive act, its success in equalizing spending and performance stand as triumphs of the school funding equalization process, and provide hope for more equal access to public schooling for all children.

The paper focuses on the challenges of unemployment, and particularly long-term unemployment, in post-reunification Germany.  The paper takes a historical approach, tracing the evolution of the German Social Market system from the late 19th Century, with a particular focus on the current structure's evolution in the post-WWII period. It examines the role that the system of codetermination, in which labor takes a formal role in firm management and supervision, played and plays in developing the German labor market. The paper focuses on the growth in long-term unemployment in Germany, with consideration of the economic causes and impact, the political calculations that influenced the system, and the moral implications of a system which trades off job security for higher unemployment.

Atheists in America today face a form of symbolic exclusion; every study and poll finds them more publicly detested than Muslims, homosexuals, Mormons and other historically excluded minorities. Detested, that is, in the abstract – though not necessarily in practice. What effects does this symbolic exclusion have on the living, breathing atheists in American communities? Certainly their plight isn’t comparable to the countless other oppressions that scar the nation’s history; and yet, it seems not insignificant that no known atheist has ever been elected to national office, or that atheism is culturally associated with almost every demon imaginable – from godless Communism to amoral individualism; from destitute criminality to loathsome elitism. As a result, some atheists are shunned for their beliefs in their conservative communities; more often, those beliefs are simply hidden. This exclusion is remarkable because it goes against trends in Western Christendom towards acceptance of atheism; perhaps more surprisingly, it also violates trends within American society towards increasing religious pluralism. After showing that this is indeed a phenomenon worth our study and concern, I argue that it is separable both in its historical causes and in its future directions from the parallel “American exception” in secularization. Indeed, the history of atheists in America can shed some new light on this overburdened workhorse of social theory. I conclude by rejecting the claims of several political thinkers that the symbolic exclusion of atheists is a necessary condition of other inclusions.

China’s economic growth since 1978 has been used by two competing schools of thought to vindicate their respective views on economic reform in socialist countries. Free Market Theorists of Convergence argue that China is evidence for the primacy of orthodox market reforms in the transition from socialism to capitalism, whereas State Theorists of Divergence maintain that China illustrates the superiority of heterodox state-led reforms. In this paper I argue that China grew because it pursued a set of distinctively experimental statist reforms which allowed for the gradual emergence of a dynamic market sector, as well as the construction of a segment of competitive large enterprises. I then propose a social structural explanation of why this particular reform path was chosen. Both arguments are tested in an analysis of the transitional trajectories of four Chinese economic sectors: automobiles, electronics, oil, and banking. The results provide strong support for the proposed explanations, and also permit some insight into the nature of China’s economic system, and the direction in which it is headed.

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This paper investigates the moral status of pornography: is it coercive speech that deserves restriction, or representation of sexual fantasy that deserves protection?  Although the claim that pornography subordinates and silences women demands consideration and respect, it does not show that pornography itself is wrong.  Instead, consideration of pornography’s role in the creation, exploration, and expression of sexuality shows that it should not only be protected, but also be encouraged to develop in progressive directions.

The most prominent theorists of supra-national governance, David Held and Jurgen Habermas, both argue that meeting the challenges of globalization requires new levels of democratic governance that supersede the nation-state. I find their empirical analysis of the challenges of globalization valuable, as it is more likely to provoke beneficial changes to the international political order than a purely normative argument. However, there is a need to integrate the normative goal of greater social justice into a theory of supra-national governance, and it is in this integration that Held and Habermas
run into difficulties. The question of how to draw the boundaries of supra-national political communities is central to my critique. On the one hand, closed communities are necessary for democratic accountability and civic solidarity; but on the other hand, such boundaries may inhibit the achievement of global distributive justice. I discuss these issues and elaborate a theory of regional governance that allows low-income societies to realize democracy and development, and thereby also global distributive justice.

Transition Town Media began when a small group of people gathered to prepare their local community to confront the dual stresses of climate change and depleting petroleum reserves (peak oil). Part of the broader Transition Town Movement, Transition Town Media seeks to address a wide array of resource management challenges. Humans are consuming natural renewable resources at a rate faster than they can regenerate. For a number of reasons, international solutions, to this problem are currently unfeasible. In order to explore the capacity of local communities to address unsustainable human consumption of renewable natural resources, I worked with the Environmental Advisory Council as well as with the Transition Town group in Media, Pennsylvania to estimate Media's Ecological Footprint. The Ecological Footprint measures human consumption contrasted against the capacity of biologically productive land on the planet to regenerate the resources required to satisfy human consumption.

This Article produces new historical evidence in relation to the ongoing debate surrounding the Supreme Court’s consideration of foreign and international law. Specifically, the piece examines the legislative history of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments—in addition to the history of other executive and legislative measures from the Reconstruction period, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866—in search of evidence relevant to the judiciary’s consideration of non-domestic norms. The importance of such an inquiry stems from the fact that little, if anything, has been said about the relevance of the Reconstruction to the Court’s invocation of foreign and international law—a surprising fact given the era’s intimate relation to the legal measures most often at issue in cases involving nondomestic citation. As the records suggest, lawmakers fromthe period were indeed aware of non-domestic norms, having regularly turned to foreign and international law for inspiration and guidance. More directly pertinent to the current debate concerning non-domestic citation, it appears that at least some Reconstruction legislators also expressly intended for future jurists to—at least in certain circumstances—consider foreign and international law while interpreting the period’s statutes and amendments.

The Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis predicts an inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income and pollution.  Economists have proposed several different theories on the factors driving this trend.  In this essay, I examine the environmental consequences associated with economic development in Malaysia.  I trace the paths of several pollutants over time, focusing in particular on suspended particulate matter, organic water pollution and deforestation.  I then analyze the respective roles of the factors driving the EKC curve in explaining the environmental trends observed in Malaysia.  I ultimately contend that regulatory policy – both in Malaysia and OECD countries – has driven Malaysia’s environmental improvements as incomes have risen.  This conclusion has important implications for other developing countries, suggesting that economic development will not automatically alleviate environmental degradation; rather, developing-country governments and international actors must exercise genuine agency to achieve improvements in environmental quality. 

Racial profiling has been identified as a fundamental problem in modern community policing, in particular with the onset of “broken windows” theories of policing. While a myriad of studies have been presented showing the presence or absence of racial profiling, there is minimal literature on the fundamental incentives behind racial profiling. This behavior can be traced to the tensions inherent in the concept of community peacekeeping. Police officers who engage in community policing practices have an extraordinarily complex task of community peacekeeping, which ideally requires a combination of actions from the individual, the police department, and the community at large. However, the complexity of this role leads officers to prioritize certain aspects of their work over others, creating an incentive structure that affects their day-to-day behavior in order to fulfill these prioritized goals. This analysis delineates the ethical role of community peacekeeping and presents the incentives for racial profiling in a three part structure of individual, department, and community. The central claim of this analysis is that officers who prioritize the formal stops and arrests strategy of statistic-based law enforcement over the problem-solving aspects of community profiling, who prioritize the use of forceful pacification over the establishment of peaceful authority, and who find themselves isolated from rather than accountable to the community, have greater incentives for racial profiling.

Reproductive capacity—one’s potential to mother or father a child—can have

significant bearing on an employee’s status in the workforce. Historically, workplace discrimination on the basis of reproductive capacity has occurred along gender lines. The biological allocation of reproductive roles has given rise to corresponding social roles and behavior patterns that affect the respective workplace status and economic well-being of the sexes. Women are responsible for a disproportionate share of reproductive activity: in addition to their biologically prescribed duty of bearing children, culture has assigned

them the task of rearing children. Women’s participation in the workplace, then, is

hindered not only by pregnancy and childbirth, but by childcare responsibilities. The belief that they will become pregnant, have children, and serve as caregivers serves as a motivation for employers to discriminate against women on the basis of their pregnancy or their potential for pregnancy. Thus, women’s role in reproduction has limited their opportunities in the labor market, relegating them to inferior positions and depressing their income. This essay will examine the nature of workplace discrimination on the basis of reproductive capacity and assess the efficacy of current legislation in preventing it. It argues: 1) that workplace discrimination on the basis of reproductive capacity is not limited to actual pregnancy discrimination, but also includes, and perhaps mainly consists

of, discrimination on the basis of fertility (for women, the potential for pregnancy) and the childcare responsibilities that are likely to follow, 2) the Pregnancy Discrimination Act fails to fully protect women from discrimination on the basis of their reproductive capacity, only truly guaranteeing protection against discrimination based on actual pregnancy, and 3) the federal law’s provision addressing discrimination on the basis of reproductive capacity should be separated from the sex discrimination prohibition of Title VII.

This essay seeks to evaluate the potential expansion of Tweed-New Haven Airport in the context of regional land use planning (or the lack thereof) in Connecticut.  The issue has been controversial for at least two reasons: the destruction of wetlands involved and the disturbance expansion would cause in the surrounding New Haven and East Haven neighborhoods.  This essay focuses on the former, though the two objections to expansion are intertwined.

The debate over the expansion of the airport occurs within the context of Connecticut, its history and its present situation.  The first section of the essay reviews Connecticut’s basic governmental structure and history of control.  It also examines the specific history and current status of Tweed airport and the wetlands surrounding it.  Groups from the federal government down to small neighborhood and environmental groups, from federal agencies to state agencies to local municipalities, have all gotten involved in determining the future of Tweed.  The second section of the essay investigates Tweed’s Master Plan for expansion and inventories the groups involved in the debate.  Today, these groups are in a deadlock.  Although the first step of the Master Plan seems ready to begin, there is little hope for future expansion, given the current governmental situation.  The third section of the essay analyzes the problems with these governmental structures and proposes possible solutions.

Finally, although the best outcome of the debate remains ambiguous, the essay arrives at overriding conclusion: the state must get involved in the expansion debate for decisions to be made in the best interest of the region.  State involvement is the key to ending the current stalemate and bringing the debate over the future of the airport to the best conclusion for all parties involved.

 In this essay, I examine the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) through two different lenses.  First, I discuss the dynamic relationship between the tribunals and international politics.  International politics has shaped the prospects and possibilities of the ICTY and the ICTR, but the ad hoc tribunals have had a significant impact on international politics as well.  Most importantly, the tribunals have struck a considerable blow against the culture of impunity that has historically allowed notorious war criminals such as Pol Pot and Idi Amin to go unpunished.  

Second, I examine the ad hoc tribunals’ accomplishments and failures and attempt to draw lessons that may be of use to future international courts.  The international community’s expectations for the ICTY and the ICTR were highly unrealistic.  Although the tribunals have expounded on important principles of international humanitarian law, they have had little impact on the war-torn societies for which they were created.  When possible, domestic trials or prosecutions before “hybrid courts,” which employ a mixture of foreign and domestic lawyers and judges and are located in the country where the crimes to be prosecuted occurred, are often preferable to trials before purely international tribunals.  Still, international tribunals such as the ICC continue to have an important role to play in bringing perpetrators to justice.  Trials before international tribunals strengthen international norms by signaling the international community’s condemnation of atrocities.  Furthermore, the threat of international prosecutions may deter some political elites from engaging in genocide and other crimes against humanity. 

Two fundamental tensions continually reemerge in my analysis of the ICTY and the ICTR.  The first is the tension between law and politics.  Judicial bodies are traditionally thought of as apolitical institutions.  In the words of Hannah Arendt, “The purpose of a trial is to render justice, and nothing else.”   The Security Council, however, intended for the ICTR and the ICTY to contribute to the political goal of maintaining international peace and security.  Furthermore, since the ad hoc tribunals lack their own police forces to collect evidence and arrest indicted individuals, they rely on international cooperation and are thus significantly affected by international politics.  The ad hoc tribunals, however, have also had an impact on international politics by generating substantial international pressure to hold suspected war criminals accountable for their crimes.  International politics has shaped the international tribunals, but the tribunals have shaped international politics as well. 

The second tension is between the tribunals’ different audiences.  From the time of their establishment, the ICTY and the ICTR have been asked to meet the needs of two distinct constituencies.  First, the tribunals are supposed to serve an “international audience” that cares primarily about the tribunals’ contributions to the growth and development of international law.  Although this international audience is primarily composed of academics and other international law experts, it also includes a number of human-rights activists, politicians, and other individuals who support the further expansion and codification of international norms.  The members of this constituency want the ICTY and the ICTR to serve as positive precedents for future international tribunals, so they are deeply concerned about the ad hoc tribunals’ international legitimacy and their reputation for independence and impartiality.  Since this international audience is the primary source of the tribunals’ moral, political, and financial support, the tribunals must be particularly sensitive to this group’s needs and wishes.  Second, the tribunals are also supposed to fulfill the needs of a “national audience”: the people of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.  Although the interests of the tribunals’ two constituencies generally overlap, they do not always coincide.  When conflict has occurred, the tribunals have often appeared more concerned about advancing international law than they have about fostering national reconciliation in Rwanda and the Balkans

The proposed International Criminal Court (ICC) promises to usher in a new era of universal justice. By crushing impunity and imposing justice on all who commit war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, the ICC aims to bring to trial alleged criminals that manage to evade prosecution on a national level. Yet there are some serious criticisms of the Court structure outlined in the 1998 Rome Treaty that threaten to undermine the American ratification effort and, ultimately, the effectiveness of the ICC. This paper examines the arguments advanced by the United States government regarding the perceived faults with the ICC. Some concerns, such as those regarding perceived violations of sovereignty and unconstitutionality, may be rather easily discounted through an analysis of American history, developments in international law and the text of the Rome Treaty. More realistic concerns, primarily the fear of military embarrassment and the resulting erosion in political capital and the US world leadership position that might occur after the initiation of an internal investigation due to the threat of ICC action, deserve a more thorough discussion. Critics should consider that active American support for the ICC would generate many positive effects for the US, including a chance to shape the development of the Court, increased global security, and the confirmation of the US as a moral leader while transferring onerous ethical watchdog duties to an international organization. The aforementioned threats to American interests are real, but in light of the great benefits the US is poised to receive by working with the ICC, it is in the best interests of the US Senate to ratify the Rome Treaty and commit needed American resources to the ICC. It is left to the American people and politicians to make the ratification of the Rome Treaty a priority for this country, and to open the new age of international accountability that the ICC hopes to engender in the near, rather than distant, future.

This senior essay focuses on Election Day Voter Registration, the political philosophy behind this policy and the policy's affect on Democratic Party turnout in elections.  Examining election results through regression analysis, the paper examines the common belief that election day voter registration benefits the Democratic Party by appealing more to the traditional constituencies of the Democratic Party.  Further, it examines the philosophical arguments for and against election day voter registration, drawing on thinkers such as Lippman, Schumpeter, Hamilton, and Madison.