Until as recently as 1992 with the landmark Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2) decision, Australia had operated under the terra nullius doctrine, or the idea that Australia was “uninhabited” prior to European settlement. As a result, white settlers engaged in brutal conquest, stealing indigenous land and slaughtering many of the First Peoples. However, even before the rejection of terra nullius, starting in 1979, the High Court of Australia began frequently ruling in ways that align with the interests of the First Peoples. In this project, I seek to examine the trends of the High Court’s indigenous land rights rulings from 1979-2008. In light of Australia’s history of genocidal oppression of the First Peoples, why have the majority of the High Court’s rulings in the area of indigenous land rights supported the interests of the First Peoples? I use qualitative analysis to code cases in terms of whether the decisions advance or oppose the interests of the First Peoples, and how far-reaching the results are. Additionally, I synthesize scholarship regarding the domestic indigenous rights movement, Australian political climate (defined by government policy), and international pressure to examine how these components may have interacted to yield the majority of these land rights decisions, which are, perhaps surprisingly, “pro-First Peoples”. Overall, I find that throughout the time period of study, each of these three key components waxes and wanes in significance, constantly interacting by both provoking and responding to change. Considering the continuing marginalized status of the First Peoples today, these findings offer hope that the High Court can be a powerful avenue for the expansion and protection of indigenous land, one that is responsive to multiple different levels of political organization, from grassroots movements all the way to the United Nations.

The purpose of this study is to explore the absence of Afro-Brazilian rights litigation in the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court. People of African descent make up 48 percent of the total population of Brazil yet have been severely oppressed through a brutal history of slavery, miscegenation, military dictatorship, and lethal police brutality. The 1988 Constitution attempts to address these historical wrongs by providing for equality under the law as well as making racism a criminally punishable offense. In light of these constitutional provisions, however, the Afro-Brazilian movement Movimento Negro has not been able to sucessfully push Afro-Brazilian rights litigation through the Federal Supreme Court, despite continued discrimination. To examine this research question, I will focus on discrimination and equality litigation, and theorize that the absence of litigation stems from systematic historical oppression and formal and informal institutional barriers, among other factors. I employ a historical case law analysis to explore the history behind Afro-Brazilian rights, as well as how equality and discrimination cases have been brought before the Federal Supreme Court. This project raises serious concerns about the systematic oppression of people of African descent in Brazil, as well as the general question of whether courts can be a mechanism for social change.

Constitutions occupy one of the most protected areas of domestic law as they negotiate the balancing of individual rights and government duties. Through legislative action and judicial interpretation, constitutions can gain meaning and balance these at times competing interests. However, in post-colonial transitioning democracies, external influences, including former colonial interests, foreign governments, and international institutions, can shape these constitutional processes. To make constitutions meaningful to society, courts, executives, and legislatures work together in balancing these external interests. In this project, I examine the high constitutional court in Hong Kong, the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), to understand this balancing dynamic. The project examines, if the CFA opens itself to outside influence, how and why the CFA balances those external interests with individual rights and Hong Kong and Mainland China’s interests. To answer, I develop an original case law dataset ranging from 1999 to 2020. Through an in-depth historical case law analysis on key cases in which the CFA invoked external legal institutions, I code for whether the court expanded or constrained rights. Preliminary findings suggest that the CFA cites external bodies like the European Court of Human Rights to increase the legitimacy of decisions that expand individual rights relative to both the Hong Kong and Mainland governments. These findings may help answer larger questions on the impact of international law and courts in protecting individual rights within domestic legal systems. Importantly, these legal mechanisms may increasingly prevent democratic backsliding in transitioning democracies.

Substantively engaging with local communities is critical to ensuring effective quarantine response and treatment to disease outbreaks. This engagement involves the integration of international-based aid with religious and government leaders to reach affected residents and treat disease while respecting local cultures. Significant gaps in community engagement by international humanitarian organizations were observed during the 2013-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic. These shortcomings hampered trust in aid collaborators, impacted dissemination of disease information, and disrupted the daily lives and community frameworks of residents. Such issues continue to have relevance as the Kivu Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo enters its third year. This research explores how humanitarian organizations operating in Kivu incorporate community engagement procedures into their work. Institutions such as the World Health Organization and Red Cross are qualitatively analyzed using an evaluation matrix designed to measure the scalability and implementation of community-based integration and participation. Indicators are drawn from official directives and policies. General patterns of cultural understanding and respect of local traditions are observed but vary across organizations. Applying similar collaborative procedures to future epidemics may aid organizational response in engaging affected populations.

Ethnic democracies exist as a paradoxical form of government: democratic institutions are present, but they are challenged by a dominant ethnic majority, often with little voice for ethnic minorities. This research examines this paradox through a case study of judicial politics in Israel. Since Israel's 1948 establishment as a democratic and Jewish state, the fundamental question of what exactly constitutes an Israeli identity has been a constant source of debate within this ethnic democracy, one even the Israeli Supreme Court struggles to answer. Israeli Arabs are 1/5 of the country's population yet they continue to experience discrimination in state institutions. Due to the Court's reputation as a defender of constitutional rights, minority activist groups have utilized the Court to advance minority rights protections. This paper examines the question of what role the Court takes in protecting and developing Israeli Arab equality rights. When and how does the Court rule in cases where the Israeli government infringes on Arab rights? Drawing from the law and courts scholarship, I hypothesize that given the Court's expansive review powers, it will not hesitate to expand and uphold minority rights protections in the face of state discrimination, but will not do so in cases that directly challenge government authority as a Jewish state. To answer these questions, I created a dataset of the Court's case law regarding Arab minority rights protections and coded the cases for the rights invoked, the type of claims, and the outcome of decisions to examine how the Court balanced Israeli state interests and Arab minority rights. The broader implications of this research problematize how minority rights are protected within the confinements of a dominant state ethnic identity and provide further understanding of the paradoxical elements of ethnic democracies. 

In cities throughout the developed world the dizzying rate of urbanization has led to a growing instability in housing fueled by a lack of affordability. A survey of 200 global cities by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy revealed that 90% were considered unaffordable, based on the standard of a house price being more than three times the median income. This paper will analyze and compare factors impacting affordability in residential real estate markets in Singapore, Vancouver B.C., the Seattle-Bellevue-Tacoma MSA, and Copenhagen. Preliminary research indicates that the primary drivers leading to a lack of affordability are an insufficient supply to meet demand, geographic limitations, household costs rising faster than incomes, demographic impacts from population growth, ageing, and shifts in household composition. The financialization of housing has resulted in its commodification, a means of accumulating wealth and as the security for financial instruments traded on global markets, which has in turn decoupled housing from its primary connection to local markets. The primary intent of this project is to advocate for long term strategic policy changes to affect affordable housing solutions that address both the supply and demand side of housing markets, as well as advocating for a unified national housing policy that places housing as a human right.