2024 Journal for Undergraduate Research Opportunities

University of Georgia

JURO 2024

Journal for Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities

FROM THE DEAN

Dear Readers,

The Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities is incredibly proud to partner with our outstanding students to bring you this special edition of the Journal of Undergraduate Research Opportunities. This edition celebrates the 25th anniversary of the CURO Symposium and includes articles that were selected for the Symposium’s Best Paper Awards in 2024.

It is my honor as dean of the Morehead Honors College to oversee CURO, which exists to help each undergraduate at the University of Georgia interested in pursuing research. Our mission is grand and ambitious, and we have witnessed thousands of students move from curiosity to interest to engagement and then, after graduation, on to professional expertise over the course of the center’s almost three decades of existence.

CURO’s groundwork was laid by UGA President Jere W. Morehead and by the Morehead Honors College’s founding dean, David S. Williams. To them I offer my sincerest appreciation. I would also like to thank the many staff members who have served the center over the years and, finally, share my appreciation for the current individuals leading CURO, James Warnock, associate dean, and Andrea Silletti, CURO program coordinator.

This edition of JURO would not be possible without the talent and tenacity of the 2024 JURO editorial staff, and it is a privilege to partner with them. We hope this special edition serves as spark for future undergraduates in their pursuit of all that research has to offer.

Sincerely,

Margaret A. Amstutz Dean of the Morehead

Honors College

Thank you to our reviewers for the 2024 CURO Best Paper Awards

Nicholas Allen

Baldwin Professor in Humanities and Director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts

Margaret “Meg”Amstutz

Jere W. Morehead Distinguished Professor and Dean, Morehead Honors College

Karrah Lauren Bowman

Doctoral Student, School Psychology, Mary Frances Early College of Education

Christopher “Chris” Cornwall

Simon S. Selig Jr. Chair for Economic Growth; Professor, John Munro Godfrey, Sr. Department of Economics; and Director, Center for Business Analytics and Insights, Terry College of Business

Mark Farmer

Professor of Cellular Biology, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Susan B. Haire

Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of Political Science, School of Public and International Affairs

William Kisaalita

Professor of Engineering, College of Engineering

Jean Martin-Williams

Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music and Associate Dean, of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Charlotte Mason

Professor and C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Marketing, Master of Marketing Research, Terry College of Business

Amanda Murdie

Georgia Athletic Association Professor of International Affairs and Head of the Department of International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs

Brandon Rotavera

Associate Professor of Engineering, College of Engineering, and Associate Professor of Chemistry, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Susan Sanchez

Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases, College of Veterinary Medicine; Assistant Director of the Biomedical Health Sciences Institute; Chair of One Health

Craig Weigert

Associate Professor of Physics and Head of the Department of Physics, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

FROM THE EDITOR

Dear Readers,

It is with great pride and excitement that I present the special edition of the University of Georgia Journal for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, known as JURO. This is the result of months of dedication, intellectual curiosity and prowess, and a commitment to the search for truth from both the talented undergraduate scholars and our staff. This special edition commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities Symposium which gives students all across campus the opportunity to present their research. CURO has become a pillar of the research community at UGA over the last 25 years with more than 600 students presenting last April.

This edition features authors who won the Best Paper Award in four different categories: Arts and Humanities, Business, Public and International Affairs, and Social Sciences. As the Editor-in-Chief, it was a privilege to bear witness to the amazing talent that the undergraduate researchers displayed both at the CURO Symposium and through the papers featured in this journal. I hope that this journal serves both as a platform to celebrate the work of the undergraduate research contained within these pages, but also as a catalyst for inspiring others to embrace the research community and all it has to offer.

Sincerely,

Joshua S. Track Editor in Chief

WE ARE THANKFUL FOR OUR STUDENTTEAM

Ryan Bohn Chair of Papers

Norris Chair of Public Outreach

Sophia Beasley Chair of Design & Layout

Widener

SYMPOSIUM TIMELINE

2000: STARTING A SYMPOSIUM

The first CURO Symposium included 65 students, 39 faculty, and 55 presentations. In this image: The first Symposium was held at the Tate Student Center and spanned five days

2006: TOPPING 200 PARTICIPANTS

The CURO Symposium grows to 232 students working with 155 faculty In this image: Kunal Mitra presents microbiology research conducted with faculty mentor Duncan Krause.

2015: RESEARCH FUNDING INITIATIVE

UGA launches the CURO Research Assistantship in fall 2014, supporting 250 students The initiative results in 388 students and 283 faculty involved in the 2015 Symposium In this image: Kitra Cates presents research conducted in genetics.

2017: CAMPUS-WIDE OPPORTUNITIES

The CURO Research Assistantship increases to fund 500 students in fall 2016 and results in 554 Symposium participants in 2017, with 54% from outside the Honors Program. In this image: Linden Pederson shows off her walking stick as part of her presentation on Extatosoma tiratum.

2019: RECORD-BREAKING DECADE

The 2019 Symposium closed out a record-breaking decade, with 695 student presenters mentored by 363 faculty It would be the last in-person Symposium until 2022 In this image: Steven Tammen shares research on ancient Greek conducted with Benjamin Wolkow

2024: 25TH ANNIVERSARY

The Symposium celebrates is 25th year with 623 student presenters mentored by 279 faculty and with a partial eclipse occurring right before the keynote session In this image: Joshua Track, Luke Bowles, and Ryan Bohn take in the partial solar eclipse

PROFESSORS SHARE THEIR FAVORITE CURO MEMORIES

What advice do

you give to students looking to work with

CURO?

Spend time finding a supportive and important mentor to guide you through your research. Do not hesitate to ask penetrating questions of the faculty member, e.g. how frequently can I see you each week, etc.

How

does CURO help students grow in their academic and career journey?

One of the major benefits is the close relationship formed between a student and his/her mentor. The importance of this one-on-one interaction cannot be overstated. Another benefit to the student is that research fosters clear reasoning and emphasizes that our concept of knowledge is not necessarily fixed and permanent, but may change.

Dr. J. David Puett, Ph.D

Regents Professor and Department Head Emeritus Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Can you describe a memory related to CURO that was significant to you?

Will took courses with me in Shakespeare and in theatrical productions. One of his papers was a study on how productions of Titus Andronicus presented race. I encouraged him to use the material at CURO, and he won the best CURO project award in the arts and humanities. The essay was submitted to JURO, which published it. The paper also became a chapter of his thesis. After graduating as a Double Dawg with both a BA and MA in 2014, Will decided to get a job in publishing. He successfully applied for an intensive short course on publishing careers and landed a starting position with a New York firm. From there he has risen to Marketing Director for People magazine. One thing that particularly delights me is that Will and his family have funded awards for University of Georgia students through the English Department, paying it forward.

What is your favorite part of CURO?

The family members who came - They got to see their student performing at the highest level, and the family’s pride was always enormous. Often the student’s project became other things: giving them a focus on what they wanted to do in school, leading them to graduate education, or helping in a career where they used research skills outside an academic setting.

Dr. Fran Teague, Ph.D

Professor Emeritus and Meigs Professor Department of Theatre and Film Studies

ARTS & HUMANITIES

El mal de Chagas: Una perspectiva histórica y la urgencia de financiar las vacunas para lucharlo

David Burke, Dr. Martin Ward (Faculty Mentor)

BUSINESS

An Exception to the Economic Loss Doctrine for Cybersecurity Negligence: The Independent Duty of Care

Ria Sardana, Prof. Lindsay S. Jones (Faculty Mentor)

PUBLIC & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

What Influences a State’s Strength of Commitment to Human Rights Treaties?

Isabella Cabibi, Dr. Andrew Owsiak (Faculty Mentor)

SOCIAL SCIENCES

The Effects of Relationship Status on Epigenetic Aging

Kelly Luo, Dr. Man-Kit Lei (Faculty Mentor)

Autumn Hampton is a fourth-year CURO Honors Scholar double majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology and sociology. In the future, Autumn is looking forward to a career as an OB-GYN specializing in ongology.

ARTS & HUMANITIES

EL MAL DE CHAGAS: UNA PERSPECTIVA

HISTÓRICA

Y LA URGENCIA DE FINANCIAR LAS VACUNAS PARA LUCHARLO

David Burke

Franklin College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Romance Languages

ABSTRACT

Chagas disease is a parasitic illness endemic to Latin America and the southern United States. Discovered in 1909 in Brazil by Dr. Carlos Chagas, it now encompasses much of the Western Hemisphere. After initial infection, the parasite can lie dormant for decades, and in thirty percent of cases, chronic complications like cardiomyopathy develop, leading to an ultimate mortality rate of around 2.3%. Six to eight million people are infected worldwide, of which ten thousand die yearly. The disease’s annual financial burden is seven billion US dollars in premature deaths, medical care, and lost productivity. Spread by triatomine insects, colloquially called “kissing bugs” for their propensity to bite, the disease ravages poorer areas with lower quality sanitation and construction. Thus, Chagas is considered a poor person’s disease. Due to this reputation, there is little financial incentive for governments or pharmaceutical companies to prioritize better treatments or a cure. In fact, between 2007 and 2013, only six million dollars were allocated to vaccine production despite the seven-billion-dollar annual financial burden. Current antiparasitic treatments are relatively effective, but only when Chagas is detected early, which is rare due to the high costs and limited availability of surveillance tests. Moreover, these drugs cause many adverse side effects. Investigators face the challenge of constructing a vaccine against a parasitic disease, a class of diseases for which only one successful and highly novel vaccine has been produced in the case of malaria. Nevertheless, university researchers in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Spain aim to create a Chagas vaccine with funding from public nonprofits. Although slow, the results are increasingly promising. World governments, pharmaceutical companies, and public health organizations must prioritize allocating resources to vaccine efforts to save thousands of lives and billions of dollars annually.

INTRODUCTION

El mal de Chagas es una enfermedad parasitaria causada por Trypanosoma cruzi que afecta a millones de personas en América Central, América del Sur y Estados Unidos. La enfermedad causa complicaciones crónicas en los tejidos cardiacos y digestivos y mata a diez mil personas cada año ("La enfermedad de Chagas"). Además, el gasto económico anual de la enfermedad es de más de siete mil millones de dólares estadounidenses por la atención médica y la productividad perdida (Beaumier et al., 2016, pp. 2996). Se descubrió a principios del siglo XX y, desde entonces, ha habido resistencia, confusión y a día de hoy, por una falta de apoyo e incentivos financieros, una pura apatía hacia los esfuerzos de curarlo.

Los tratamientos farmacéuticos actuales contra el Chagas son de eficacia limitada, y no se pueden usar en casos asintomáticos por sus efectos secundarios negativos. Además, solo funcionan durante las etapas tempranas de la enfermedad y no para los casos crónicos (CDC - Chagas Disease, 2019). A pesar de los defectos de los tratamientos quimioterapéuticos, las compañías farmacéuticas y los gobiernos de la región no priorizan la búsqueda de mejores tratamientos ni métodos de prevención porque el Chagas se considera una enfermedad de pobres. Sin embargo, hay investigadores

de universidades en Estados Unidos, Argentina, Brasil y España que buscan curarlo con resultados prometedores, aunque lentos, en las pruebas iniciales. Estos investigadores reciben ayuda de organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro y del sector público paradesarrollar las vacunas (Dumonteil et al., 2012, p. 1). Este ensayo demostrará que, aunque es difícil de prevenir y tratar, curar el Chagas no es imposible, como han demostrado estos esfuerzos. Aunque los tratamientos actuales no son perfectos, son el primer paso en el camino hacia el mejor control de la enfermedad. En el futuro, es esencial que los gobiernos del mundo y las organizaciones de salud pública aporten más recursos para facilitar el desarrollo de las vacunas contra el Chagas para salvar miles de vidas y ahorrar miles de millones de dólares al año.

Figura 1. Carlos Chagas, el científico consumado que descubrió el mal de Chagas en 1909 (Pinto, 2007)

LA HISTORIA DE LA ENFERMEDAD

En 1908, mientras Carlos Chagas (mostrado en Figura 1), un médico brasileño de treinta años, lideraba una campaña contra la malaria en Minas Gerais, Brasil (Lewinsohn, 2003, p. 533), recibió informes de un desarrollo preocupante. En muchos trabajadores locales, las picaduras de insectos estaban causando un brote de casos de una enfermedad desconocida. La enfermedad causaba hinchazones en el lugar de la picadura, más frecuentemente la cara, y se asociaba con otros síntomas también, como fiebre, fatiga, dolor de la cabeza y malestar general. Al comienzo, no estaba claro si esta enfermedad era la malaria, transmitida por un vector nuevo, o si era una enfermedad totalmente nueva (Náquira & Cabrera, 2009, p. 495). En realidad, a pesar de las semejanzas con la malaria, el culpable era un parásito anteriormente desconocido.

El misterio se resolvió el 14 de abril 1909 cuando Chagas cuidó a una niña de dos años que presentaba síntomas de malaria. Tomó una muestra sanguínea y al examinarla, descubrió un parásito nuevo que nombró Trypanosoma cruzi. Luego encontró este mismo parásito en el intestino de un insecto triatomino, indicando que los insectos eran el vector, o por lo menos un reservorio del parásito. Cuando inoculó los animales de laboratorio con el parásito, aparecieron las lesiones características de la enfermedad que había hecho estragos en la región. Determinó que el Trypanosoma cruzi era el agente causal y nombró esta enfermedad la enfermedad de Chagas (Náquira & Cabrera, 2009, pp. 494-495). Aunque solo se descubrió hace 114 años, esta enfermedad ha existido durante al menos nueve mil años según los segmentos del ADN de Trypanosoma cruzi en las momias de la cultura chinchorro que vivía entre el norte de Chile y el sur de Perú (Fornaciari et al., 1992, pp. 128-129).

A pesar de los descubrimientos de Chagas sobre el agente causal de la enfermedad y su presencia en los intestinos de los insectos triatominos, todavía había confusión e ideas contradictorias sobre la enfermedad. Por ejemplo, en Argentina se pensaba que los insectos triatominos (llamados “vinchucas” en Argentina) no causaban la enfermedad. Específicamente, el Instituto Bacteriológico de Argentina, la principal autoridad de enfermedades infecciosas en Argentina durante la época, declaró que el T. cruzi siempre causaba el bocio. Por lo tanto, los casos de infección por picadura de vinchucas que no resultaban en el bocio se consideraban una evidencia de que las vinchucas en Argentina no causaban la misma enfermedad que Chagas había descubierto en Brasil (Zabala, 2009, pp. 59-60). En realidad, la infección provocada por T. cruzi no siempre causa el bocio, así que este razonamiento fue erróneo. Los casos sin bocio muy bien pudieron haber sido la misma enfermedad aunque los síntomas diferían de los casos confirmados con bocio. No obstante, nunca es fácil convencer al público general sobre los hechos relacionados con las enfermedades, como hemos visto en los últimos años Desafortunadamente, la

lucha contra la desinformación e

Figura 2. Un insecto triatomino, el vector del parásito Trypanosoma cruzi, que es el agente causal del mal de Chagas (Villacarlos, 2022)

ignorancia retrasa el progreso para mejorar la salud de todo el mundo.

Como resultado de las confusiones alrededor del Chagas, la investigación se paró por más de una década entre 1916 y 1926. Entonces la enfermedad comenzó a aparecer con frecuencia creciente, atrayendo la atención de investigadores de nuevo. En 1926, la Universidad de Buenos Aires creó un laboratorio para explorar y estudiar las enfermedades comunes en Argentina llamado Misión de Estudios de Patología Regional Argentina (Zabala, 2009, p. 60), cuyo director, Charles Nicolle, fue un científico consumado que ganó el premio Nobel por su trabajo sobre el tifus en 1928 (Charles Nicolle (1866-1936), 2016). Un alumno de Nicolle que trabajaba en el laboratorio, Salvador Mazza, desarrolló un programa que buscaba investigar y curar enfermedades poco estudiadas del país, siendo una de ellas el Chagas (Zabala, 2009, pp. 60-61).

En 1930, Salvador Mazza descubrió los primeros casos confirmados del Chagas en animales. Inicialmente se encontró en perros, armadillos, murciélagos y comadrejas. Durante la década de 1930, a pesar de la resistencia social, científica y religiosa, Mazza detectó más de 1,200 casos confirmados del Chagas. Sus esfuerzos incansables establecieron la enfermedad como una grave amenaza en Argentina, logrando que los científicos y el gobierno alcanzaran más control sobre la enfermedad (Zabala, 2009, pp. 60-62). No hay duda de que sus descubrimientos cambiaron totalmente la dirección del entendimiento del mal de Chagas y los esfuerzos contra la enfermedad, ya que se pasó de una etapa de estancamiento e ignorancia a otra de progreso, conocimiento e incluso mejor control. Carlos Chagas murió a los 55 años en 1934 por complicaciones cardiacas recordativas de las que estudiaba en los casos de la enfermedad que descubrió (Muere un gran hombre de ciencia, 2017). Desafortunadamente, luego

en 1946, Mazza sufrió el mismo destino a los sesenta años, muriendo de una enfermedad cardiaca, más probablemente también provocada por la enfermedad a la que dedicó su vida a estudiar. Los dos investigadores contribuyeron tanto al estudio de la enfermedad de Chagas que en Argentina la enfermedad se llamó la enfermedad de Chagas-Mazza para reconocer las contribuciones de los dos (Zabala, 2009, pp. 62-63). Ante la adversidad y la duda, los dos hombres persistieron incansablemente, y sus esfuerzos han prevenido la pérdida de vidas incontables. Los esfuerzos continuados hasta una cura honran sus sacrificios.

LA PROPAGACIÓN

DEL PARÁSITO

Hoy en día, hay muy poco debate sobre si el mal de Chagas se transmite a través de los insectos triatominos (mostrado en Figura 2) que llevan el parásito en sus estómagos. Cuando los insectos defecan, pueden causar infección si sus heces entran en contacto con la persona a través de una herida cutánea. Frecuentemente, esto sucede cuando los insectos pican a las personas y las personas empujan las heces dentro de la picadura por accidente cuando la rascan. A veces la picadura se hincha cuando se infecta, pero no siempre. Además, si una persona toca las heces y luego se toca los ojos, se puede infectar. En este caso, es común que se les hinchen los párpados, un fenómeno que se llama “el signo de Romaña” (CDC - Chagas Disease, 2019) (mostrado en Figura 3). Este signo ha sido entendido desde los días de Mazza, siendo la primera persona que oficialmente lo reconoció (Zabala, 2009, p. 62). En lugares donde los insectos triatominos son ubicuos, es efectivamente inevitable que ocurra la infección.

Es posible que algunas personas se infecten indirectamente ingiriendo comida contaminada por las heces de un insecto infectado. Asimismo, el parásito se puede transmitir a través de transfusiones sanguíneas, trasplantes de órganos o congénitamente, de madre a hijo ("La enfermedad de Chagas"). Se estima que un 5% de las madres embarazadas infectadas con el Chagas transmiten el parásito a su hijo. Si la madre lleva el parásito en niveles más altos, es más probable que lo transmita congénitamente (Howard et al., 2014, p. 22). Es esencial, entonces, considerar la sanidad general y la atención para las mujeres embarazadas en lugares donde el Chagas es común.

Ya que el Chagas se transmite a través (del vector) de los insectos triatominos, una mala higiene sirve como caldo de cultivo para la enfermedad. Las áreas rurales suelen tener peor higiene, así que el Chagas hace estragos allí de forma desproporcionada ("La enfermedad de Chagas"). Desafortunadamente, debido a que es más común en áreas con menos recursos económicos, se considera una enfermedad de pobres. Por eso, no recibe la misma atención de las compañías

farmacéuticas y los gobiernos como las enfermedades que podrían traer más lucro, como pueden ser el COVID-19, el VIH o la malaria. Mientras la gente no presta atención, el Chagas sigue matando a sus víctimas en silencio a lo largo de varias décadas.

Figura 3. El signo de Romaña, un signo común (hinchazón del párpado) que puede indicar infección por T. cruzi a través del ojo (El signo de Romaña, 2016)

LOS EFECTOS DE LA ENFERMEDAD

En América Central, América del Sur y partes del sur de Estados Unidos, el Chagas constituye un parásito endémico, y en cualquier momento dado, hay seis a ocho millones de personas infectadas. Además, mata a más de diez mil personas cada año ("La enfermedad de Chagas"). Considerando el número de víctimas, la atención médica necesitada y la productividad perdida como resultado de la enfermedad, el gasto económico anual es siete mil millones de dólares (Beaumier et al., 2016, pp. 2996). Sin embargo, los poderes existentes no priorizan prevenir, tratar y curar el Chagas y el costo de nuestra sociedad es incalculable.

La patología del Chagas se divide en dos fases, que son la aguda y la crónica. La fase aguda dura semanas o meses después de la infección inicial. Usualmente carece de síntomas, o solo tiene síntomas leves. Al contrario, en casos sintomáticos, un paciente padece una miríada de síntomas, incluyendo la hinchazón en el lugar de infección inicial, erupción, fiebre, fatiga y síntomas gastrointestinales. A veces se desarrolla inflamación grave del cerebro o del corazón ("Enfermedad de Chagas - Síntomas y causas"). La infección durante la fase aguda se puede detectar microscópicamente por niveles altos de parasitemia, o sea, parásitos en la sangre. Tras cuatro a ocho semanas, los niveles de la parasitemia disminuyen hasta que no se pueden detectar. No obstante, los parásitos persisten dentro de las células del huésped durante la próxima fase de la enfermedad, la fase crónica (Bern, 2011, p. 2528). La educación sobre los

síntomas de la fase aguda y las pruebas de vigilancia son muy importantes y pueden salvar vidas porque el tratamiento es más eficaz durante esta fase.

La fase crónica persiste después de la infección inicial, con niveles de parásitos más bajos. Podría carecer de síntomas y evitar la detección durante décadas después de la infección inicial o incluso puede no detectarse nunca ("Enfermedad de Chagas - Síntomas y causas"). Los casos que quedan asintomáticos después de recuperarse de la infección inicial se llaman “indeterminados” porque todavía quedan parásitos en las células del infectado, pero no se sabe si causarán síntomas en el futuro. Mientras tanto, los casos crónicos que presentan síntomas se llaman “determinados” porque han llegado al punto que la infección se presenta de nuevo. Se estima que un 30% de los casos crónicos progresarán a ser determinados (Apt B et al., 2008, p. 195).

Los síntomas de la fase crónica determinada incluyen “latidos irregulares del corazón, insuficiencia cardiaca, paro cardiaco repentino, dificultad para tragar por el agrandamiento del esófago, dolor estomacal o estreñimiento por el agrandamiento del colon” ("Enfermedad de Chagas - Síntomas y causas"). Casi todos los casos determinados presentan síntomas cardiacos que se llaman la cardiomiopatía chagásica, mientras que un tercio presentan síntomas digestivos ("La enfermedad de Chagas"). El parásito causa estos síntomas porque vive en los tejidos corporales de la persona que infecta, haciendo daño poco a poco a lo largo de varios años. Eventualmente, este daño puede causar fallos orgánicos, lo que resulta en la muerte del 7.9% de las personas que desarrollan la cardiomiopatía chagásica (Chadalawada et al., 2021, p. 5466), es decir, aproximadamente el 2.3% de todos los infectados. Para ponerlo en perspectiva, el COVID- 19 tiene una tasa de mortalidad menor del 1% (COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer, s.f.).

Sorprendentemente, el 70% de las personas infectadas no saben que lo están ("El 70% de las personas con Chagas"). Para diagnosticar el Chagas, se usan pruebas parasitológicas que detectan parásitos vivos en la sangre durante la fase aguda cuando un paciente presenta síntomas por primera vez. En casos crónicos con niveles de parásitos demasiado bajos para detectar directamente, las pruebas serológicas que son más sensibles y que detectan anticuerpos contra los parásitos revelan si una persona está infectada ("Secretaría de salud - Enfermedad de Chagas"). Desafortunadamente, ambas pruebas son prohibitivamente caras (Hotez et al., 2013, p.2). Por eso, las personas pobres no pueden acceder a ellas, y especialmente no pueden justificar pagarlas si carecen de síntomas, lo cual frecuentemente es el caso. Entonces el Chagas escapa la detección temprana en la mayoría de los casos, especialmente entre los pobres, y sigue contagiando a más personas. Cómo el VIH, el COVID-19 y la malaria, es una enfermedad potencialmente fatal que se contagia sin control, pero no recibe la misma atención ni el mismo financiamiento.

Figura 4.

El Benznidazol y el Nifurtimox, los dos tratamientos quimioterapéuticos más comunes contra la enfermedad de Chagas (Imagen creada por el autor usando ChemDraw 20.1)

TRATAMIENTOS ACTUALES, LO BUENO Y LO MALO

En este momento, el Chagas se trata por medicamentos anti-tripanosomas, sobre todo el Benznidazol y el Nifurtimox (Enfermedad de ChagasEnfermedades infecciosas, s.f.)

(estructuras químicas mostradas en Figura 4). El desarrollo de tratamientos comenzó al descubrir la enfermedad, pero sin éxito sustancial hasta 1966 cuando se creó el Benznidazol. El Benznidazol forma un enlace covalente con intermedios de nitroreducción esenciales al metabolismo de los parásitos, lo cual los mata (Docampo, 1990, p. 6). El Nifurtimox, que se desarrolló en los años 1970, produce metabolitos de oxígeno reducidos. En comparación con los humanos, los parásitos tienen menos capacidad de desintoxicar estos metabolitos que las células humanas, matando a los parásitos sin causar demasiado daño a los humanos (Bern, 2011, p. 2528).

El objetivo principal de los medicamentos es prevenir la progresión hacia el daño de los tejidos corporales durante la fase crónica determinada, lo cual causa complicaciones y muerte. Aunque se ha demostrado que estos tratamientos son eficaces hasta cierto punto, sus mecanismos de función bioquímica conllevan efectos secundarios negativos para los humanos, lo cual previene que se usen en todos casos (CDC - Chagas Disease, 2019). En realidad, los medicamentos antiparasitarios en general tienen efectos secundarios notoriamente malos. Por ejemplo, los tratamientos contra la malaria, otra enfermedad causada por un parásito, también provocan efectos secundarios perjudiciales a los humanos. Las células de parásitos tienen más en común con las células de los humanos, como la presencia de un núcleo y la falta de una pared celular, en comparación con otros patógenos como las bacterias que tienen una pared celular pero faltan un núcleo. Por esta razón, los mecanismos que se aprovechan de las características vulnerables de las células parasitarias pueden también ser dañinos para el humano.

En el caso de los tratamientos contra el Chagas, el Benznidazol puede causar la dermatitis, la neuropatía, la anorexia y el insomnio (Tratamiento antiparasitario, 2019). Por ejemplo, un estudio en España de la Unidad Regional de Medicina Tropical determinó que un 40.2% de las personas que toman el Benznidazol tienen efectos adversos. Específicamente, un 30.2% sufren efectos de la piel y un 9.1% de intolerancia digestiva, entre otros (Fernández et al., 2011, pp. 123-124). Igualmente, el Nifurtimox causa síntomas neurológicos y gastrointestinales (Tratamiento antiparasitario, 2019). En cierta medida, estos efectos secundarios son inevitables, pero con estos medicamentos son bastante extensos. Por lo tanto, se justificaría la investigación e inversión en buscar tratamientos alternativos con menos efectos secundarios.

Otro problema enorme es que los dos tratamientos están contraindicados con el embarazo. Por eso, las mujeres embarazadas no pueden tomar estos medicamentos porque pueden dañar al feto. En este caso, la única forma de tratamiento es intentar reducir los síntomas cardiacos (Embarazo y Chagas - WikiCardio, s.f.). Durante el embarazo, los parásitos dañan a la mujer, y es posible que sufra alguna forma del Chagas crónico más tarde. Además, como se ha mencionado antes, estar infectado con el parásito aumenta el riesgo de transmitirlo al hijo (Embarazo y Chagas - COALICIÓN CHAGAS, s.f.).

La mejor manera de medir la eficacia de estos medicamentos es usar las pruebas serológicas que detectan anticuerpos contra los parásitos y son más sensibles que las pruebas parasitológicas, que solo pueden detectar los parásitos directamente ("Secretaría de salud - Enfermedad de Chagas"). Si una persona anteriormente infectada se trata y entonces la prueba serológica no detecta los anticuerpos contra el parásito, es probable que el parásito ya no esté y el medicamento haya funcionado. No obstante, en niveles muy bajos, el parásito todavía puede evitar la detección de incluso estas pruebas

(Forsyth et al., 2016, pp. 1056). En consecuencia, medir con certeza la eficacia de los medicamentos es difícil porque no siempre está claro si eliminaron totalmente el parásito que puede persistir en niveles indetectables. A pesar de los efectos secundarios y las dificultades de medir la eficacia de los medicamentos, es obvio que los pacientes que reciben tratamiento más temprano obtienen mejores resultados en prevenir la progresión hacia la fase crónica determinada. Además, los medicamentos son más eficaces en pacientes más jóvenes y que han estado infectados por menos tiempo. En los casos en los que el Benznidazol o el Nifurtimox se administra temprano en el desarrollo de la infección, los dos tratamientos son casi un 100% eficaces en los recién nacidos que se infectan congénitamente, y más de un 60% eficaces en los casos agudos generales. En cuanto a los casos crónicos indeterminados, la eficacia de los tratamientos no se ha medido con certeza por las dificultades de detectar el patógeno antes y después del tratamiento, pero los resultados sugieren que los medicamentos ayudan a prevenir la progresión a síntomas crónicos (Forsyth et al., 2016, p. 1056). Por último, en los casos que nunca han mostrado síntomas, el tratamiento no es común por los efectos secundarios. Ahora mismo, estos dos medicamentos son la única opción viable para tratar el mal de Chagas. Si bien el tratamiento se indica para las etapas tempranas de los casos determinados, la eficacia disminuye con el tiempo (Forsyth et al., 2016, pp. 1056-1057).

Desafortunadamente, por el costo de los medicamentos, la dificultad de identificar casos de la enfermedad en primer lugar y los casos por los que no es ideal usar los medicamentos, como el embarazo o las personas que 17teman los efectos secundarios, solamente un 1% de las personas infectadas reciben tratamiento cada año ("El 70% de las personas con Chagas"). En el futuro cercano, hay que expandir las pruebas de vigilancia para identificar más casos, movilizarse para proporcionar los medicamentos a más personas y seguir buscando tratamientos alternativos con menos de estas limitaciones.

Figura 5. Las vacunas contra el Chagas podrían ser la opción más prometedora para controlarlo (Chagas disease vaccine, 2021).

LAS VACUNAS DEL FUTURO

Los investigadores del Sabin Vaccine Institute, la Universidad de Baylor, otras universidades en el estado de Texas y varias universidades de Argentina, España y Brasil intentan crear varios tipos de vacunas para aliviar la carga del Chagas. En 2016, había dos perfiles de producto objetivo: una vacuna preventiva y una vacuna terapéutica. Una vacuna preventiva busca prevenir la infección y se administra a la población general, mientras que la vacuna terapéutica busca tratar y eliminar el parásito de las personas que están en la fase indeterminada crónica, o las etapas tempranas de la fase determinada crónica. Otra opción es combinar la vacuna terapéutica con los medicamentos quimioterapéuticos que ya existen. Se espera que la eficacia sea aún más alta si se usan en conjunto (Beaumier et al., 2016 pp. 2998).

Una limitación de la vacuna preventiva es que no se puede romper la cadena de transmisión totalmente en el caso del Chagas. Es decir, la vacuna preventiva impide la enfermedad en las personas que reciben la vacuna, pero los insectos triatominos siguen sirviendo como reservorios del parásito. Por eso, las personas que no han recibido la vacuna preventiva todavía serán vulnerables. Al contrario, con las enfermedades de las que los humanos son los únicos o principales vectores, como el COVID-19, el VIH y la gripe, se puede alcanzar una inmunidad colectiva sin vacunar a todo el mundo (Herd Immunity - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics, s.f.). Por ejemplo, los casos más famosos de este fenómeno serían la viruela, que se erradicó al vacunar a aproximadamente un 80% de la población humana mundial (Smallpox Vaccines, s.f.), y la polio, que casi se ha erradicado al vacunar a aproximadamente un 84% de la población mundial (Immunization Coverage, s.f.).

Lamentablemente, con una vacuna preventiva contra el Chagas, habría que inocular a cada persona en la sociedad para erradicarlo, lo cual no es realista. Asimismo, los esfuerzos de crear vacunas contra otras enfermedades con reservorios animales como la malaria enfrentan esta complicación. Sin embargo, proteger a las personas que reciben la vacuna preventiva sería un buen paso hacia el control del Chagas.

Los análisis de rentabilidad (considerando costo de fabricación y distribución frente al dinero ahorrado en atención médica y productividad) indican que la opción más prometedora esla vacuna terapéutica. Solo se administraría a las personas infectadas y ofrecería protección aunque ya estuvieran infectadas, al menos en teoría (Beaumier et al., 2016, pp. 2998). No obstante, el problema con esta opción es que todavía sería difícil de saber con seguridad si una persona está infectada, y consecuentemente si debe recibir esta vacuna, por lo que una vacuna terapéutica tendría que ir acompañada de mejores esfuerzos de pruebas de vigilancia para alcanzar su eficacia plena.

A lo largo del desarrollo de las vacunas, los resultados han sido prometedores. Sin embargo, el progreso es lento. Entre 2007 y 2013, solamente se otorgaron seis millones de dólares en fondos a los esfuerzos. La mayoría de este dinero vino de los principales patrocinadores del sector público como el Ministerio Argentino de la Innovación de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, el Instituto Pasteur, el Ministerio Federal Alemán de Educación e Investigación (BMBF) y los Institutos Nacionales de Salud de Estados Unidos (NIH) (Beaumier et al., 2016, pp. 2998-2999). Al mismo tiempo, el gasto económico del Chagas es de más de siete mil millones de dólares cada año a la economía mundial en atención médica y productividad perdida. Las vacunas podrían prevenir o curar una enfermedad que cada año mata a diez mil personas y cuesta a la sociedad muchas veces más de lo que costaría desarrollar las vacunas. Es para el mejor interés de todo el mundo que los gobiernos mundiales, las compañías farmacéuticas y otras organizaciones filantrópicas, ya sean públicas o privadas, inviertan en el futuro de la salud humana contribuyendo recursos a los esfuerzos de desarrollar una vacuna contra el Chagas.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my research mentor, Dr. Magdalena Matuskova, for her help throughout the process of researching, writing, and revising this paper. She has taught me an incredible amount of new Spanish, been very patient with me, and made many helpful suggestions to improve my paper during our weekly meetings. I would also like to thank my research mentor, Dr. Martin Ward, for his help revising this essay and his continued support during my academic journey. He has been very generous with his time to help improve my research techniques, academic writing skills in Spanish, and professional development.

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A previous version of this paper was published in The Classic Journal : 8.1 Fall 2022. That paper can be found here: https://theclassicjournal.uga. edu/index.php/8-1/.

BUSINESS

AN EXCEPTION TO THE ECONOMIC LOSS DOCTRINE FOR CYBERSECURITY NEGLIGENCE: THE INDEPENDENT DUTY OF CARE

Ria Sardana

Terry College of Business, Department of Legal Studies

ABSTRACT

According to an IBM Data Breach Report, “an alarming 83% of organizations experienced more than one data breach during 2022.” These breaches frequently result in drastic financial consequences and loss of customer trust. It is not a matter of if a data breach will happen, but rather when. Often consumers, whose data has been compromised, do not have contractual rights to enforce, so they turn to negligence claims in pursuit of compensation. The challenge lies in the fact that the Economic Loss Doctrine bars economic recovery in tort when the losses are purely economic. In the context of cybersecurity breaches, if a negligent party fails in its duty to safeguard consumers’ personal data, consumers cannot recover when their losses are purely economic. Because most losses from cybersecurity lapses are monetary, many consumers are left uncompensated when the doctrine is applied. To remedy this, this paper argues that the independent duty of care, an exception to the Economic Loss Doctrine that establishes a defendant’s legal duty independent from any contractual duties, should apply to negligence claims that are based on failure to maintain reasonable cybersecurity measures to protect consumer data. An immediate and consistent application of this exception in all negligence claims across jurisdictions would hold organizations accountable for their negligence in safeguarding consumer information. This approach would promote diligence in protecting consumer data and establish a more uniform standard for addressing cybersecurity negligence.

I. INTRODUCTION

The world today is highly interconnected, digital, and unfortunately exposed to the challenge of data breaches. The Equifax data breach in 2017, settled in 2019, exposed the sensitive information of 147 million individuals, approximately half of the United States population.¹ Hackers stole an array of information: names, birth dates, social security numbers, addresses, driver's license numbers, and more. This gave the hackers the ability to use personal information for identity theft, destroy consumer creditworthiness, and acquire loans or tax refunds deceptively. In In Re Equifax, when determining the injury and damages, due to Equifax’s lack of cybersecurity protocol, Equifax argued for the application of the Economic Loss Doctrine.² Equifax argued that the Economic Loss Doctrine barred the recovery of the plaintiffs who suffered purely economic losses. However, as noted by the United States District Court, an exception to this doctrine, the independent duty of care, does not

rule out recovery from such losses when the defendant breached their independent duty of care to the plaintiff.³ To ensure equitable compensation for victims of data breaches, this paper argues that this independent duty of care should apply to all negligence cases based on a defendant’s failure to reasonably protect customer data. To provide context for this proposal, Part II of this paper will discuss the historical consequences of data breaches, including financial, privacy, and security implications. This section will emphasize the size and scale of data breaches. Parts III, IV, and V will then explain the Economic Loss Doctrine, types of economic damages, and the doctrine’s application, respectively. Part VI will describe the exception to the doctrine, the independent duty of care. Lastly, Part VII will conclude by expressing the benefits of a more uniform and standard application of the exception to the doctrine: the independent duty of care.

¹ (“Consolidated Consumer Class Action Compl. ¶ 2 [Doc. 374]. ” In re Equifax, Inc., 362 F. Supp. 3d 1295, 1308 n.1 (N.D. Ga. 2019), n.d.)

² Id.

³ “Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Cagle's, Inc., 2010 WL 5288673, at”In re Equifax, Inc. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., MDL 2800, 23 (N.D. Ga. Apr. 13, 2022)

⁴ Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023, IBM, https://www.ibm.com/reports/data-breach

5 Michael D. Shear, Nicole Perlroth, and Clifford Krauss, Biden Administration Formally Attributes Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack to Criminal Group, The New York Times (June 7, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/ 2021/05/13/us/politics/biden-colonial-pipeline-ransomware.html.

6 John Doe, Legal Issues in Cyberspace, Georgia Law Review, https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1423&context=glr.

7 PHMSA Issues Proposed Civil Penalty of Nearly $1 Million to Colonial Pipeline Company for Control Room Management Failures, US Department of Transportation (May 5, 2022), https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/news/ phmsa-issues-proposed-civil-penalty-nearly-1-million-colonial-pipeline-company-control-room.

8 Ani Petrosyan, Average cost of a data breach in the United States from 2006 to 2023, Statistica (Jan. 26, 2024) https://www.statista.com/statistics/273575/us-average-cost-incurred-by-a-data-breach/#: ~:text=As%20of%202023%2C%20the%20average,million%20U.S.%20dollars%20in%202023.

9 In re Yahoo! Inc. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., Case No. 16-MD-02752-LHK (N.D. Cal. Aug. 30, 2017)

10 Equifax to Pay $575 Million as Part of Settlement with FTC, CFPB, and States Related to 2017 Data Breach, Federal Trade Commission (July 22, 2019) , https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/ equifax-pay-575-million-part-settlement-ftc-cfpb-states-related-2017-data-breach.

11 SolarWinds Cyberattack Demands Significant Federal and Private Sector Response (infographic), U.S. Government Accountability Office (April 22, 2021), https://www.gao.gov/blog/solarwinds-cyber-attack-demandssignificant-federal-and-private-sector-response-infographic.

II. HISTORICAL CONSEQUENCES OF DATA BREACHES

Data breaches have led to drastic consequences for organizations. There are financial, security-related, and privacy costs resulting from massive data breaches. According to IBM, “The global average cost of a data breach in 2023 was 4.45 million USD.”4

A. FINANCIAL

The financial ramifications of data breaches are uncertain and can take a significant toll on an organization. These encompass but are not limited to ransom payments, loss of business, remediation, and lawsuits. As an example, the Colonial Pipeline attack in 2021 was a ransomware cyber-attack on the computer systems that managed an American oil pipeline. Hackers demanded approximately $5 million in ransom in return for control of the pipeline.5 Furthermore, there was a storm of lawsuits, following the incident itself, as several states experienced fuel shortages when the pipeline was shut down for several days. Lawsuits by individual consumers and gas station owners sought actual and compensatory damages for the high gas prices, along with punitive damages, statutory fines, and attorney fees.6 In addition, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) proposed a civil penalty of approximately $1 million on the company for control room management failures.7

As of 2023, the global average expense of a data breach was approximately $4.45 million, with the average cost for such incidents in the US is $9.48 million.8 Gradually costs are rising, and they fluctuate depending on the industry sector.

Many data breaches result in high-dollar class action lawsuits filed against the defendants, generally organizations, by plaintiffs, for their alleged negligence in protecting consumer data. The series of Yahoo Inc. data breaches from 2012 to 2016, which compromised the data of over 1 billion users, cost the company more than $350 million.9 Yahoo was fined $35 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for failure to notify consumers of the data breach in a timely manner. The settlement amount itself was $117.6 million. Additionally, it is important to note that

financial consequences can be immediate yet also extend long-term—impacting a company’s financial health and market standing. At the time of the data breach, Yahoo was in the process of finalizing a merger with Verizon. However, the data breach led to a decline in the company’s overall value. Moreover, Yahoo’s share price experienced a drop in the aftermath of the security breaches. In the Equifax case, the global settlement amounted to $575 million, assisting consumers in recovery from the repercussions of the data breach.10 In essence, data breaches can result in nearly limitless financial consequences, often surpassing the expenses that would have been incurred by companies to implement more robust security measures.

B. PRIVACY & SECURITY

The immediate worry stems from the privacy and security ramifications associated with data breaches. The primary cause of most breaches is a deficiency in security measures, resulting in heightened vulnerability to both privacy and security. After a breach, an organization’s security systems require costly upgrades. National security can also be a concern depending on a company’s governmental relations. Although the Colonial Pipeline attack did not have a direct impact on national security it targeted a critical piece of U.S. infrastructure. This incident prompted concerns regarding the implications of data breaches on critical infrastructure, potentially posing future risks to national security.

In September 2019, SolarWinds, a software company based in Texas, suffered a cyber-attack. The significance of this data breach stems from the widespread use of SolarWinds' Orion software by the federal government to monitor network activity on federal systems. Because the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the Treasury Department were affected, this case highlights how cyberattacks can directly threaten national security.11 On a more consumer-to-corporation level, data breaches result in data exposure, and unauthorized access to sensitive data putting both companies and consumers in precarious states. Reverting to the pre-data breach state is challenging for companies, let alone recovering from the losses incurred. Yet, data exposure is just the tip of the iceberg. Consequential chain reactions include

12 "Economic Loss Doctrine," American Bar Association, Under Construction: The Newsletter of the ABA Forum on Construction Law (Spring 2021), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/construction_industry/ publications/under_construction/2021/spring2021/economic_loss_doctrine

13 “The Economic Loss Doctrine (ELD) Can Bar Negligence Claims in Construction Matters, But What About Fraud?”, Hoagland Longo, Moran, Dunst Doukas, LLP, July 28, 2021, https://www.hoaglandlongo.com/ blog/the-economic-loss-doctrine-eld-can-bar-negligence-claims-in-construction-matters-but-what-about-fraud

14 Id.

15 Savings Bank v. Ward, 100 U.S. 195 (1879)

16 The Economic Loss Doctrine & Data Breach Litigation: Applying The “Venerable Chestnut Of Tort Law”, In The Age Of The Internet, Vol. 62:1665, Boston College Law Review, pg. 1671, https://lira.bc.edu/files/pdf? fileid=87a3f7d0-61f9-4fe3-b718-1bda70495629.

17 Id.

18 Seely v. White Motor Co., 63 Cal.2d 9, 45 Cal. Rptr. 17, 403 P.2d 145 (Cal. 1965)

19 Id.

reputational damage, operational disruption, and intellectual property risks.

III. ECONOMIC LOSS DOCTRINE

The Economic Loss Doctrine (ELD) has been adopted by most jurisdictions in the U.S. and its purpose is to bar parties from recovering in tort when the negligence of others results solely in economic loss. Many parties seek recovery in tort because it would provide them with greater recovery than stipulated in their contracts. While the doctrine seems simple on its surface, its application is rather complex. Its application can be determined by a variety of factors, such as the nature of the parties’ relationships, the terms of the contract, and the facts at issue.12 Moreover, a party that suffers from only purely economic loss must seek remedy in contract law, not tort law. If the contract is able to provide a remedy, then the ELD will bar tort claims, and the contract determines recovery, not tort. The ELD may also be applied in situations where the parties do not have a contractual relationship with one another but have individual contracts with a third party.13 The ELD has been most commonly applied to bar cases that involve negligence.14 The ELD is applied to tort claims when the losses are purely economic. If the claim is purely economic, then the doctrine reasons that contract law should be applied, not tort law.

The history of the ELD can be traced back to 1879.15 Yet, a more developed application of the doctrine is from 1965, in Seely v. White Motor Co. 16 The Supreme Court of California applied the ELD in Seely v. White Motor Co., involving product liability ensuring that the defendant, the manufacturer, was not subject to unlimited economic liability.17 In this case, the plaintiff purchased a truck from a corporation, White Motor Co., with an express warranty.18 The truck “galloped,” violently bouncing, and the brakes failed. While the plaintiff suffered no bodily injuries as a result, there were significant costs of repairs.19 Thus, the plaintiff sued White Motors Co. and the dealership the truck was bought from, for the cost of repairs, purchase price, and the business’s lost profits.20 The courts, however, denied the plaintiff’s claims for damages that were outside the scope of the explicit warranty.21 Plaintiff argued that “while the law of warranty governs economic relations between the parties, the doctrine of strict liability in tort should be extended to govern the physical injury to the plaintiff’s

property.”22 The court explicitly stated that for tort claims, a manufacturer’s liability is limited to damages for physical injuries and there is no recovery for economic loss alone, illustrating the application of the ELD.23 As demonstrated in the Seely case, the ELD historically applied to product liability, though its scope has expanded, and is now applicable to a range of tort cases.24

In the context of cybersecurity, particularly following a data breach, victims often seek compensation by suing data holders for negligence. The ELD is applied in a manner similar to other types of cases, however differing in the fact that it does not necessarily preclude a tort claim if there exists a recognized independent duty of care in that particular jurisdiction. For example, some courts have held that entities entrusted with gathering sensitive private data from consumers and storing it on networks are obligated to safeguard such information.25 Other jurisdictions, on the other hand, do not recognize this “duty of care,” thereby preventing the recovery of economic losses through the ELD. As a result, plaintiffs in these jurisdictions are often not compensated for their losses.

The underlying issue before considering the doctrine is the tort versus contract dilemma. If consumers do not have a contractual remedy to enforce, then they can only pursue a tort claim, more specifically negligence. The defendants, often corporations, argue the Economic Loss Doctrine as a legal strategy in court to hinder consumers from recovering monetary damages. However, this practice can be perceived as unjust because it acts as a shield, shielding corporations from accountability for their failure to take reasonable measures to protect consumer data.

The question at hand is whether the doctrine should bar these negligence claims pertaining to cybersecurity breaches. This paper argues that the Economic Loss Doctrine should not bar these negligence claims. Rather, its exception, the independent duty of care, should promptly prohibit the application of the doctrine in consumer versus merchant cases to incentivize such organizations to take reasonable cybersecurity measures, safeguarding consumer data and reducing the likelihood and consequences of a data breach.

IV.TYPES OF DAMAGES

Before discussing the doctrine’s application, it is important to discuss the types of economic damages, because the type ultimately determines whether the ELD bars recovery and what the plaintiffs will be entitled to.26 The term “economic damages” can be used interchangeably with other terms like “economic loss,” “pure economic loss,” and “commercial loss.”27 There are direct economic damages, consequential economic damages, and expectation damages.28 To simplify, direct damages occur directly to the product itself, but the consequential damages are all those other economic damages that are “attributable to product defect.”29 Expectation damages can be defined as “those damages that are the difference between what was given and what was promised,” and essentially put the party in the same as if the breach did not happen.30 The majority of damages arising from data breaches are not direct damages, but instead consequential damages, examples of which can be referred to in Part II of the paper.31 While economic loss refers to monetary damages, non-economic loss can be other damages such as physical damages to a person, personal injury, or property damage, both of which are only recoverable under a tort suit.32 So, when parties seek recovery in tort based on only economic loss, their claims are subject to the ELD. In tort cases, the injured party can receive compensatory damages to compensate for all types of loss. These can include direct losses as well as indirect losses.33 After identifying the types of damages, the courts proceed to determine whether the claimed damages are economic or non-economic. Subsequently, they determine how to apply the doctrine.

V.APPLICATION

OF THE DOCTRINE

The application of the doctrine varies among different jurisdictions. There are a few jurisdictions that permit recovery under tort for purely economic loss.35 However, a majority of jurisdictions, specifically twenty-eight states, interpret the ELD in a way that does not permit recovery in tort for purely pecuniary

losses.36 Claims from data breach cases generally fall into two categories: the first is claims by customers of the entity that was breached and the second is the financial service entities.37 This paper focuses on the first categories, pertaining to the consumers of these entities. As discussed previously, most claims of consumers are related to credit card information, social security numbers, or personally identifiable information that has been accessed via a data breach.38

VI.THE INDEPENDENT DUTY OF CARE & APPLICATION

The independent duty of care serves as a notable exception to the Economic Loss Doctrine, effectively circumventing its application in certain scenarios. Particularly, the exception bars the ELD in cases where the injury of the plaintiff traces back to a breach of tort duty that arises independently of the outlined contract terms.39 Put simply, if a breach occurs concerning a duty that is distinct from or “independent” of contractual obligations, the defendant can still be held liable. This is especially pertinent in cases where the parties did not have an explicit contract, such as in consumer and merchant interactions, and the plaintiff reasonably expected the defendant to uphold a duty of care – especially in safeguarding personal information. This can also be referred to as a “special relationship” between parties that creates an independent duty. Courts have applied this exception in many cases involving large corporations such as Target, Equifax, and Home Depot, as described below.

THE TARGET BREACH IN 2014

The Target Data breach in 2014 exposed 40 million records, resulting in a civil action lawsuit initiated by consumer credit card holders.40 This case serves as a notable illustration of the distinct independent duty of care or “special relationship” existing between Target and its consumers who utilized credit cards at Target retail locations. In reaching their decision, the court looked at different jurisdictions asserting the absence

28 See, e.g., Seely v. White Motor Co., 403 P.2d 145, 150–51 (Cal. 1965), superseded by statute on other grounds, CAL. CIV. CODE §§ 895–945.5 (West 2014) (using the term “commercial losses” interchangeably with “economic losses” ).

29 Jeffrey L. Goodman, Daniel R. Peacock, & Kevin J. Rutan, A Guide to Understanding the Economic Loss Doctrine, Drake Law School, Vol. 67 pg. 10, https://lawreviewdrake.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/goodman-final.pdf

30 Expectation Damages,” Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/expectation_damages

31 Mikaela M. Witherspoon and Maureen E. Fulton, Protecting Against Data Breach Liability: How Service Providers Can Manage the Inherent Risk of Cyber Incidents, https://www.koleyjessen.com/media/publication/100_TNLSeptOct22_Mag.pdf

32 See 26.

33 Damages,” Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/damages#:~:text=In%20a%20tort%20case%2C%20the,pain%20and%20suffering%20or%20inconvenience.

34 Ralph C. Anzivino, The Economic Loss Doctrine: Distinguishing Economic Loss from Noneconomic Loss, Volume 91.4, Marquette Law Review, https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1161&context=mulr#:~:text=The%20economic%20loss%20doctrine%20requires,are%20recoverable%20through%20tort%20law.

of a “special relationship.”41 While certain states, including Alaska, California, and Massachusetts, barred negligence claims stemming from pecuniary losses, other jurisdictions opted for an exception to the ELD.42 In these jurisdictions, the courts shifted their focus towards whether a relationship would warrant tort liability even in the absence of personal injury or property damage, i.e., solely monetary loss.43 The court determined that the “near-privity, direct relationship between plaintiffs and Target did in fact establish a duty.”44 This ultimately meant that claims in states recognizing this exception were not subject to dismissal.45 The court’s review of other jurisdictions in this case highlights the non-uniform application of the independent duty of care exception throughout the United States.

THE EQUIFAX DATA BREACH

A recent application of this exception is displayed in the Equifax case, mentioned in the Introduction of this paper, where US District Court of the Northern District of Georgia cited the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, stating that it is “well established that an entity [Equifax] that collects consumer sensitive data and stores it on their networks, does have the duty to protect that information.”46 The exception, in this case, depicted that the defendants had a “duty” to safeguard the plaintiffs’ personal information. The exception of the independent duty of care barred the application of the Economic Loss Doctrine.

HOME DEPOT DATA BREACH

The Home Depot Data Breach occurred in 2014, which also illustrates the application of the independent duty of care.47 Hackers stole the personal information of approximately 56 million Home Depot customers.48 The hackers further sold the information to thieves, who then made fraudulent purchases on credit and debit cards issued by Home Depot.49 Here although, there was a card agreement contract between the card issuers and the plaintiffs – falling under contract law – the independent duty of care exception still barred application of the Economic Loss

Doctrine.50 Generally, purely contractual duty is not actionable under tort law if the consequences are only economic losses.51 In this case, although Home Depot knew of the risk early in 2008, they ignored it, by failing to implement adequate security measures.52 Home Depot did not have a sufficient firewall nor satisfactory internal controls.53 Moreover, they failed to restrict unauthorized access to the data of cardholders.54 The U.S. District Court of Minnesota stated that, “[a] retailer’s actions and inactions, such as disabling security features and ignoring warning signs of a data breach, are sufficient to show that the retailer caused foreseeable harm to a plaintiff and therefore owed a duty in tort.”55 Thus, the court found an independent duty of care to exist, barring the application of the Economic Loss Doctrine.”56 This demonstrates that under certain circumstances, courts may establish a duty in tort, yet this is not always the case. In many other jurisdictions, however, claims might not progress to this point because they would be dismissed upon the application of the ELD.

VII.CONCLUSION

In various instances, corporations possess awareness of potential risks well before a data breach transpires, whether that awareness spans years preceding the incident or arises shortly before. Notably, in cases such as Home Depot57 and the Equifax data breach,58 the defendants acknowledged their knowledge of the associated risks but failed to implement sufficient measures to protect consumer data. This lapse may be attributed to a perceived advantage under the Economic Loss Doctrine, a legal principle that proved to be complex and uncertain in its application. The Economic Loss Doctrine serves as a robust instrument for defendants (often corporations), influencing the approach plaintiffs can take when bringing forth their legal claims. However, contrary to their expectations, the Economic Loss Doctrine did not apply in both cases. Instead, the legal framework of an independent duty of care took precedence, leading to the recovery of economic losses incurred by consumers. Similarly, the independent duty of care, an exception to the Economic Loss Doctrine, should immediately apply to all negligence cases regarding an organization’s lack of duty of care for consumersensitive information. This will promote cyber security

35 "Economic Loss Doctrine," American Bar Association, Under Construction: The Newsletter of the ABA Forum on Construction Law (Spring 2021), https://www.americanbar.org/groups/construction_industry/ publications/under_construction/2021/spring2021/economic_loss_doctrine

36 Id.

37 David W. Oderbeck, Cybersecurity, Data Breaches, and the Economic Loss Doctrine in the Payment Card Industry, Volume 75.4, Maryland Law Review, https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=3718&context=mlr

38 Id.

39 Michael D. Jefferson, The Economic Loss Rule v. Independent Duty Doctrine, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP Blog, Sep. 28, 2021, https://www.dwt.com/blogs/government-contractsinsider/2021/09/washington-state-independent-duty-doctrine

40 See In re Target Corp. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., 66 F. Supp. 3d 1154, (D. Minn. 2014).

resilience and push corporations to put more effort into their security measures. In the Home Depot case, the court denied the defendant’s proposal to assert that it had no legal obligation to protect the information.59 The courts explain that affirming the absence of the duty would potentially permit corporations to utilize outdated security measures and disregard the escalating threat of cyberattacks.60 Not only should courts bar the application of the Economic Loss Doctrine in cases where there is evident proof of corporations neglecting reasonable security measures, but they should apply the independent duty of care exception to all negligence cases. While data breaches are inevitably hard to prevent, this proposal may help to minimize their likelihood by encouraging corporations to invest in robust cybersecurity practices. Additionally, it empowers consumers to recover their financial losses due to failure to implement reasonable cybersecurity measures.

41 Catherine M. Sharkey, Can Data Breach Claims Survive the Economic Loss Rule, DePaul Law Review, Vol. 66: 339, https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=4015&context=law-review

42 Id.

43 Id.

44 Id.

45 Id.

46 In re Equifax, Inc., 362 F. Supp. 3d 1295, 1321 (N.D. Ga. 2019)

47 In re Home Depot, Inc., Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., MDL DOCKET NO. 2583 (N.D. Ga. May. 17, 2016)

48 Id.

49 Id.

50 Id.

51 Id.

52 Id.

53 Id.

54 Id.

55 See In re Target Corp. Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., 66 F. Supp. 3d 1154, (D. Minn. 2014).

56 Id.

57 In re Home Depot, Inc., Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., MDL DOCKET NO. 2583 (N.D. Ga. May.)

58 In re Equifax, Inc., 362 F. Supp. 3d 1295, 1321 (N.D. Ga. 2019)

59 In re Home Depot, Inc., Customer Data Sec. Breach Litig., MDL DOCKET NO. 2583 (N.D. Ga. May.)

60 Id.

PUBLIC & INTERNATIONALAFFAIRS

WHAT INFLUENCES A STATE’S STRENGTH OF COMMITMENT TO HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES?

Isabella Marie Cabibi School of Public and International Affairs, Department of International Affairs

ABSTRACT

States’ commitment to human rights treaties varies—from strong to weak. Some states ratify these treaties without reservation and comply fully with the treaties’ provisions. Other states fail to ratify, issue numerous reservations that undermine the treaties’ terms, or decide not to comply with the treaty’s provisions. What explains this variation? To answer this question, scholars need a good measure of “commitment.” In this research, I reconceptualize commitment and develop a new measure of it based on three main factors: whether a state ratifies a treaty, the number of reservations that a ratifying state attaches to the treaty, and the state’s subsequent compliance with the treaty’s provisions. I then combine these three components into a single measure of commitment and explain the weighting decisions beyond their aggregation (e.g., why compliance contributes most to my measure). I then hypothesize that democracies, states with higher levels of GDP per capita, and states with fewer occurrences of intrastate conflict (peace) have a higher strength of commitment to human rights treaties. I find in a series of OLS regression analyses that democracies and countries with higher levels of GDP per capita have a higher strength of commitment score to human rights treaties; however, an inverse relationship exists between the strength of commitment to human rights treaties and peace, suggesting that fewer occurrences of intrastate conflict result in a lower strength of commitment score to human rights treaties.

I. INTRODUCTION

Upon the establishment of the human rights regime in 1948 after WWII, the United Nations established human rights treaties which a state can ratify, implement, and comply with its provisions. Existing research investigates human rights treaties and their effectiveness (Neumayer, 2005), how they influence state behavior (Hill, 2010), and states’ commitment to them (Cole, 2009). However, there has not been one definitive way to measure commitment and what may influence a state’s commitment to the treaty. In measuring commitment, one aspect of commitment to human rights treaties is sparse in existing research: measuring compliance.

With this observation, I ask: what influences a state’s strength of commitment to human rights treaties? In this paper, I explore an effective way to measure a state’s strength of commitment and then perform a series of OLS regressions across all nine treaties to determine what influences a state’s strength of commitment to human rights treaties.

A. BACKGROUND

The United Nations has designated nine core human rights treaties. The United Nations created these treaties under international human rights law to lay down obligations to which states must comply. The human rights treaties I focus on in this investigation (all nine) are (i) the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), (ii) the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR), (iii) the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), (iv) the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), (v) the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), (vi) the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), (vii) the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW), (viii) the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED), and (ix) the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

A state must respect, protect, and fulfill human rights with these treaties. These nine treaties protect rights inherent in all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status (United Nations, 2022).

II. MEASURING COMMITMENT

In answering the question of what influences a state's commitment to human rights treaties, one must first designate how to measure a state's strength of commitment. What is a commitment? What are the different levels of commitment? How would one measure these levels of commitment? Many political scientists have measured commitment in various ways, but is there

something missing from their measurements? This portion of the paper will explore and find potential answers for each question referencing literature to determine the best measure of a state's strength of commitment to human rights treaties.

To define the first question, commitment, in simple terms, it is an obligation that restricts freedom of certain actions. This definition applies to consenting to the obligations of a United Nations human rights treaty, in which one would determine what qualifies as commitment and if there are varying levels. Some political scientists boil it down to treaty signing and ratification. For instance, simply signing the treaty can be considered a soft endorsement, qualified ratification is a "ritualized commitment," and unqualified ratification is a hard obligation (Cole, 2009). Others focus mainly on a state's reservations in committing to a said treaty. Hill (2016) hypothesizes that states will have high incentives to ratify and enter reservations, understandings, or declarations (RUDs) when ratification imposes new and potentially binding constraints on the state. Neumayer (2007) theorizes something similar: RUDs are a legitimate means to account for diversity and are used by countries that take human rights seriously. Alternatively, RUDs are regrettable and detrimental to the human rights regime (Neumayer, 2007).

In reservation measurement, existing research sees commitment as a function of reservations. This form of measurement is flawed, as the hypothesis concerning RUDs as legitimate or regrettable (Neumayer, 2007) may need to be revised. For instance, if low commitment produces reservations and high commitment also produces reservations from a state, then there may not be a determinate for the measurement; however, there are several findings that reservations are more likely when the treaty is more legally binding with constraints and obligations (Hill, 2016). This is not to say that reservations play no role in determining a state's strength of commitment, but they will be useful when combined with other commitment measurements.

When combining signing versus ratifying along with reservations, assuming that more reservations are more likely to result in low commitment (Hill, 2016), one detrimental factor remains in the measurement of commitment. This measurement is compliance: how the state adheres to the obligations of the said treaty after the first steps of commitment (signing versus ratifying with or without reservations). This measurement may be tricky, as compliance is only observed ex-post, and one would want to know commitment ex-ante. Therefore, in researching a state's level of commitment to human rights treaties, this may constrict data to only countries who have only signed or ratified and after a specific date to measure its compliance. Alternatively, data could concern countries that have not ratified but show compliance with human rights law under the treaties. The latter may be irrelevant because, without the basis of commitment, compliance does not apply since the states are not complying with any legally binding agreement.

Using compliance as a measurement means determining whether a state has gone through the basis of commitment to a treaty and has violated any aspects of the treaty. Unfortunately, there are assumptions that the general level of compliance with international agreements or treaties cannot be empirically verified (Chayes & Chayes, 1993). With this, one must find an "acceptable level of compliance"; however, this is not an invariant standard, and the acceptable level of compliance will shift with the type of treaty, the context, the exact behavior involved, and over time (Chayes & Chayes, 1993). Leaving a definition of an acceptable level of compliance to the United Nations may be plausible, as it would determine what constitutes a violation of the specific treaty in its context and how often.

The basis of data in which one would investigate what influences a state's strength of commitment to human rights treaties, with all measures of commitment considered, would be a combination of all three previous measures. Maintaining the idea of solely signing a human rights treaty as the lowest level of commitment would mean that a state that has signed and ratified with no reservations and high compliance would be the strongest level of commitment. There will be many variations of each state's level of commitment (e.g., signing with high compliance or signing, ratifying, few reservations, and low compliance) that will invoke questions as to why these circumstances occur.

Considering Cole's (2009) rationale with a "soft" commitment to a human rights treaty as a signature, I will only use ratification to measure commitment. In other words, if a country only signs and does not ratify a human rights treaty, that is considered neither weak nor strong but no form of commitment. As mentioned, the measurement of RUDs may need to be revised since more RUDs can imply both weak and strong commitment. With existing research suggesting that reservations are more likely when the treaty is more legally binding with constraints and obligations (Hill, 2016), I will not include understandings and declarations in my measurement but solely focus on the number of reservations a state has to a specific human rights treaty. If a state fears that a treaty presents more obligations that it is unwilling to follow, which calls for reservations, it showcases a weaker commitment to that treaty.

Therefore, I determine that the more reservations a state has, the weaker its commitment is to the treaty. However, since reservations sometimes mean weak commitment, the maximum number of reservations a state may have for a treaty will not imply zero commitment in my final measure. As for measuring compliance, compliance suggests observing a state's behavior over time, meaning the compliance measurement could differ for each treaty and country. To avoid this scenario, The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner measures compliance through reports of each state's ratified human rights treaty and whether or not a state has accepted the individual complaints procedure for that treaty.

As for the reporting aspect of compliance, "once a State party has acceded or ratified a human rights treaty, it assumes a legal obligation to report on the implementation of the rights and standards enshrined in that treaty" (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2020). With the acceptance of individual complaints procedure, its purpose "captures a State's commitment to ensure the respect, protection, and fulfillment of human rights by allowing individuals to complain at the international level about possible violations of their rights" (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2020). Rather than observing each state's behavior post-ratification of a treaty, I develop a measure of a state's reporting, whether it is on time, and whether a state has accepted the individual complaints procedure.

With the review of various measures of commitment, I have four categories from which to measure commitment, with two contributing to measuring compliance, thus creating an original measure and dataset for commitment for 195 countries for each of the nine core human rights treaties. These four categories, in summary, will be whether or not a state has ratified the treaty (with no ratification implying zero commitment for the remaining measurements), the number of reservations a state enters (more reservations implying weaker commitment), a compliance measure of reporting obligations (late reports showcasing weaker commitment), and whether or not a state has accepted the individual complaints procedure for the treaty.

A. DATA COLLECTION & VALDIITY OF VARIABLES

I use information from the United Nations to collect the data for my chosen variables to calculate commitment. Specifically, I used the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner website to find which countries have ratified a specific treaty and when and whether or not a state has accepted the individual complaints procedure for that treaty. For reservations, I used the United Nations Treaty Collection page to determine how many reservations each state had to a specific treaty. Lastly, for late reports, I used the United Nations’ annual reports of each treaty to see which countries had late reports and by how much.

I ran into a few problems with my data collection, as I wanted each treaty’s data to be as of December 31, 2022. For some treaties, the most recent annual report was as of 2021 rather than 2022, and I had to use that information as the most recent reporting. The treaty dated the longest was the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 2019. This aspect may affect the validity of my variables, as the late reports section for each treaty may not be as of 2022. Other than that, the other variables were up-to-date.

As for collecting the data, I have assigned a numeric value to each variable. A binary variable exists for ratification, where a country that has ratified is represented by a 1, and a country that has not is a 0. In collecting reservation data, I had to make a few decisions about what qualifies as a reservation. For example, if a country references more than one article for a treaty in its reservations, the number of articles is counted as reservations. Any language such as “We reserve the right to…” or “We will not be bound by…” is also counted as a reservation, even if it is not labeled. Lastly, if a country mentions not signifying the recognition of Israel or how certain obligations may not interfere with Sharia law, it also qualifies as a reservation. With these definitions of reservations, a country with 0 to 3 reservations is represented by a 3. A country with 4 to 6 reservations is represented by a 2; a country with 7 to 10 reservations receives a 1 (where 1 shows the weakest commitment).

As for the compliance measures, I have decided to measure commitment with reports regarding their punctuality. In other words, submitting a report to the United Nations for a treaty is not a measure of commitment, as it is an obligation. I noticed when collecting data that the United Nations received several late reports. Therefore, I am measuring commitment based on whether or not a country submits its report on time and how late the report is. For instance, if a country’s report is at least ten years late (the United Nations considers this “seriously overdue”), it will be represented by a 1. If a country’s report is at least five years late, it will be represented by a 2. Finally, if a country’s report is less than five years late, it will be represented by a 3.

Lastly, the second compliance measure of the acceptance of individual complaints procedure will act as a binary variable where if the country accepts the procedure, it will receive a 1. If a country does not accept it, it will receive a 0. Assigning numeric values to these variables allows more transparent data collection and simplifies calculating the final commitment score.

B. OPERATIONALIZING VARIABLES

Each form of measurement (Ratification, Number of Reservations, Late Reports, and Acceptance of Individual Complaints Procedure) is assigned a numerical representation, as explained prior, to which that number receives a commitment score. The scoring is designated on an ordinal scale from 0 to 1, with 0 being no commitment and 1 being the highest commitment possible. Commitment is measured on an ordinal scale because ordinal scales do not assume equal intervals between the categories. The ordering provides a sense of direction, but the differences between the commitment scores are not uniform across categories (Goertz, 2020).

In Table 1, I assigned a score of 0.25 for ratification per my ordinal scale because the state is simply becoming a member of the treaty, which implies it plans to commit to the treaty's obligations. Without ratification, a state cannot comply with other measurements of commitment; therefore, if a state does not ratify a treaty, it will not have a final commitment score. Ratification determines all other aspects of commitment, and the ratification of human rights treaties allows states to become legitimate actors in the community of states (Wotipka, 2008).

In Table 2, the highest score for reservations (0.15) is the lowest of the commitment scores I have assigned. As mentioned previously, existing research sees commitment as a function of reservations. This form of measurement can be seen as flawed – if low commitment produces reservations and high commitment also produces reservations from a state, there may not be a determinate for the measurement. Therefore, I am using more existing research that implies that the more reservations a state has, the lower its commitment to the treaty (Hill, 2016). As a result of this flawed measurement, I did not give any number of reservations a commitment score of 0 because more reservations may not necessarily mean low commitment. However, I kept the overall scores lower by a sequence of 0.05.

As mentioned, the United Nations measures compliance in various ways – one being whether or not a state has a late report due periodically to summarize its adherence to the treaty. The United Nations summarizes these late reports by mentioning whether they are at least 10 or 5 years late. From this, I developed a scale in Table 3, with the least amount of reservations receiving the highest score of 0.3. Since the section on Late Reports goes into my measurement of compliance, I designated a score of 0.3 to be higher than the previous two sections because I consider compliance to showcase the most commitment. Existing research shows that state compliance with the standards of human rights treaties, despite ratifying, remains elusive (Davies, 2014).

Without compliance, a state can ratify and not uphold any treaty obligations. Again, I did not want to assign a 0 to any amount of late reports, as a state having a late report does not necessarily mean it is not fulfilling its

obligations to the treaty. However, it may not be reporting its fulfillment of the treaty to the United Nations. I did use a specific sequence for the sake of not making any number of late reports 0. Instead, I subtracted half from 0.3, then 0.1 from 0.15 (the score for at least five years late), so 0.05 would be the lowest score for late reports.

The Acceptance of Individual Complaints Procedure also falls under my compliance measurement, as seen in Table 4, as it showcases how a state acknowledges the jurisdiction of a treaty body to receive and consider individual complaints or communications from individuals or groups who claim that the country has violated their human rights. Since this section and Late Reports contribute to compliance, I also gave the act of accepting these procedures a 0.3 commitment score. This score is high and the same as Late Reports results from research showing that resistance to optional protocols like accepting the individual complaints procedure shows a significant lack of compliance (Davies, 2014). Unlike Late Reports and Reservations, I assigned a 0 to a country if it chooses not to accept these procedures because there is no leeway in this measurement –whether the country accepts the procedures or not. Therefore, if a country does not accept these procedures, it receives a 0.

III.

INFLUENCES OF STRENGTH OF COMMITMENT

To find what influences a state’s strength of commitment to human rights treaties, I look at what underlying factors that make human rights violations more or less likely. Research suggests that a state’s protection of human rights, economic development, good governance, and peace are all intertwined and mutually reinforcing (Evans, 1994). To utilize these variables as influences of strength of commitment, one must first define them and explain how they are intertwined.

A. DEMOCRACY

In determining what qualifies as good governance, democratic governance is the strongest indicator. The underlying goal of democracy is to promote human development by expanding on the capabilities people possess with freedom. While democracy is not essential for good governance, and bad governance can occur in democracies, the principle of free and fair elections makes it possible to remove corrupt leaders (Abdellatif,

2003). The ability to remove corrupt leaders would allow for the removal of bad governance by the people. In claiming that a democratic nation best represents good governance, it is important to compare the qualities of good governance and democracy. To achieve good governance, a nation must promote social and economic progress (Oburota, 2003). Democracies, one may argue, bring forth social and economic progress. Siegle, Weinstein, and Halperin (2004) dispel the myth that development is essential before a nation can democratize.

Existing research in comparing poor democracies to poor autocracies, poor democracies outdo poor autocracies in social progress through a higher life expectancy, access to clean drinking water, literacy rates, agricultural yields, and the quality of public health services. As for economic progress, the median per capita growth rates of poor democracies continue to be 50 percent higher than those of autocracies (Siegle et al., 2004). These outcomes suggest that democracies, despite being low-income states, possess the qualities of good governance through social and economic progress. The biggest takeaway from this finding is that democratizing brings these developments to a state, not development paving the way for democracy. In tying democracies and human rights, democracies protect human rights far more than any other regime. Davenport (1999) finds that democracies bring less repressive governments, and democratization immediately fosters human rights protection within a nation through decreased violent conflict and repression. Conversely, autocracies are more likely to have increased human rights violations. In terms of failing democracies, Diamond (1996) explains countries experiencing the “third wave” of democratization or the “reverse wave,” where newly established or reestablished democracies fail and are accompanied by a downfall of human rights protection, peace, and political freedom. Democracies promote social and economic progress, which defines this regime type as a measure of good governance and fosters human rights protection with less conflict and repression. After determining that democracies represent good governance and are essential for enforcing human rights practices, I provide my first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Democracies have a higher strength of commitment score to human rights treaties.

B. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

As for economic development and supporting the idea that democracy, human rights, and economic development are intertwined, Cole (2012) explains that one of the most consistent empirical findings in the literature on human rights is that democracy and development reduce levels of repression and abuse. However, focusing specifically on how economic development is associated with more robust human rights practices, Blume and Voigt (2007) find that,

within countries, a strong positive association exists between basic human rights, property rights, and civil and emancipatory rights and economic growth. This positive association suggests that human rights practices and economic development go hand in hand and are mutually reinforcing. To reaffirm this position, Bradlow (1996) finds that sustainable development cannot occur without economic growth and the promotion of human rights. Also, democracy and development are not attainable without keeping human rights at the center of discussion (Donnelly, 1999).

Measuring economic development is done in various ways. For this investigation, I choose gross domestic product (GDP) per capita as the most appropriate measure of economic development. Despite its limitations, many researchers use GDP per capita as a measure of economic development and state capacity (Cingranelli et al., 2019). GDP per capita is a consistent measure for all countries and adjusts to purchasing power from one country to the next. Establishing GDP per capita as a measure of economic development, I provide my second hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Countries with higher levels of GDP per capita have a higher strength of commitment score to human rights treaties.

C. PEACE

Peace, the last factor mutually reinforcing human rights practices, good governance, and economic development, may be determined in various ways. I argue that a lack of intrastate conflict demonstrates peace within a nation because of its link to a country’s human rights practices. Intrastate conflict is defined as conflict that occurs within the borders of a single sovereign state. Research shows that human rights violations, the existence of groups subject to discrimination, and societal inequalities independently produce the likelihood of conflict within a nation (Cingranelli et al., 2019). In other words, human rights practices prevent internal or intrastate conflict, thus providing peace.

To discuss more precisely how a lack of intrastate conflict qualifies as peace for this investigation, I focus on what happens within a nation and its peace rather than conflict between two or more nations (interstate). I want what occurs within a nation that would influence its implementation of human rights practices and strength of commitment to human rights treaties. For triggers to intrastate conflict, discrimination, violations of social and economic rights, violations of civil and political rights, abuse of personal integrity rights, the nature of the political regime, and denial of political participation rights are all either underlying causes or direct triggers to intrastate conflict (Thoms, 2007). These triggers suggest that the implementation and commitment to these treaties will protect these rights, thus, resulting in fewer occurrences of intrastate conflict.

Human rights are directly intertwined with peace and a lack of intrastate conflict within a nation, as denial of human rights causes more internal conflict. This variable is directly tied to democracy and economic development, as democracy as good governance can promote reconciliation and offer a path for consolidating peace in a post-conflict scenario within a nation (Reif, 2000). After determining that a lack of intrastate conflict is an appropriate measure of peace, I provide my third hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Countries with less occurrences of intrastate conflict have a higher strength of commitment score to human rights treaties.

IV. RESEARCH DESIGN

In order to address the hypotheses outlined above, I conduct ordinary least squares regression in a time-series (OLS) analysis for my commitment variable from 19652022, which is the average strength of commitment scores for each country across all nine treaties. Then, I perform the same analysis for each of the nine treaties to observe how the results differ in commitment scores individually.

Democracy is the main independent variable for this investigation. The dates for each regression analysis correspond to the date the treaty was adopted and when each country adopted the treaty from that point. To measure democracy, the PolityV measure from Marshall and Jaggers (2018) provides that governments fall in the democracy category when their scores are in the range of 6 (partial democracy) to 10 (full). The autocracy range is from –6 (partial) to –10 (full autocracy). The countries in between these numbers (i.e., scoring below 6 but above –6), anocracies, are non-democracies for this investigation. Democracy is a categorical variable based on the descriptions from the polity score, where countries with a score greater than 6 are a democracy.

To measure GDP per capita, my second independent variable, I use the United Nations’ data page and its timeseries collection of per capita GDP at the current price in United States dollars. Furthermore, I take the logarithm of GDP per capita to make the data more linear, reduce skewness, and aid in achieving homoscedasticity. To measure peace, my last independent variable, I observe where intrastate conflict has occurred in each country from 1965 to 2022, represented by either a 1 or a 0 as a categorical variable. If a country experiences intrastate

V. EMPIRICAL RESULTS

Table 5 displays a series of OLS regression of states’ strength of commitment scores to human rights treaties. Model 1 investigates the association between the average strength of commitment scores across all nine treaties and whether or not a state is a democracy, each state’s log GDP per capita, and whether a state has had occurrences of intrastate war from 1965-2022. Models 2-10 in the order of (ii) CERD, (iii) CCPR, (iv) CESCR, (v) CEDAW, (vi) CAT, (vii) CRC, (viii) CMW, (ix) CED, and (x) CRPD, investigates the same as Model 1 except they explore the association for each treaty.

Model 1 shows that holding all other variables constant, a state being a democracy exerts a positive, statistically significant effect on a state's strength of commitment to human rights treaties. In other words, a

state being or moving towards democracy achieves higher scores of strength of commitment to human rights treaties. Therefore, my first hypothesis receives strong and consistent support. For my second independent variable, holding all variables constant, higher levels of GDP per capita exert a positive, statistically significant effect on a state's strength of commitment to human rights treaties – a state with higher levels of GDP per capita achieves higher scores of strength of commitment to human rights treaties; thus, my second hypothesis also receives strong and consistent support.

However, the results for my peace variable (fewer or no occurrences of intrastate war) are inconsistent with my third hypothesis. While holding all other variables constant, a state with fewer to no occurrences of intrastate war exerts a negative, statistically significant effect on a state's strength of commitment to human rights treaties, as opposed to states with occurrences of intrastate war. In

other words, there is an inverse relationship between peace and strength of commitment, meaning as peace increases, commitment decreases. Therefore, I received the opposite result of my third original hypothesis.

Models 2-10 are mostly consistent with the results for Model 1, with slight differences in Models 5, 7, 8, and 9. In Models 5, 7, and 9, holding all other variables constant, the association between peace and a state's strength of commitment is not statistically significant at any confidence level. In Model 8, holding all other variables constant, the association between log GDP per capita and a state's strength of commitment is not statistically significant at any confidence level either.

With these results, specifically from Model 1, I find support for my first and second hypotheses that democracies and countries with higher levels of GDP per capita have a higher strength of commitment to human rights treaties. Unfortunately, the inverse relationship between peace and strength of commitment does not support my third hypothesis, meaning that countries with fewer occurrences of intrastate conflict have a lower strength of commitment to human rights treaties. The inconsistencies in Models 5, 7, 8, and 9 may be attributed to various factors. For instance, there may not be as many countries that ratified, resulting in a commitment score of 0 for most countries. On the other hand, these differences could result from Simpson's Paradox, where a trend appears in different groups of data but disappears or reverses when these groups are combined: a "no second order interaction" (Simpson, 1951). In this instance, perhaps when looking at the average commitment score for all treaties, a trend is observed; however, when examining each variable individually, the significance is not as apparent due to the influence of other variables.

VI.CONCLUSION & DISCUSSION

At the beginning of this investigation, I asked how one would measure commitment, specifically compliance. I explored a way to measure a state's strength of commitment to human rights treaties through ratification, reservations, late reports, and acceptance of the individual complaints procedure. I then investigated why countries would have the commitment scores they do through whether or not a country is a democracy, their levels of GDP per capita, and the number of occurrences of intrastate war. The results of this investigation provide three conclusions. First, there is evidence that democracies have a higher strength of commitment to human rights treaties. Second, states with higher levels of GDP per capita have a higher strength of commitment to human rights treaties. Finally, states with fewer occurrences of intrastate conflict have a lower strength of commitment to human rights treaties.

However, these findings are inconsistent for some of the individual treaties. For this reason and others, some limitations exist within this investigation. The variables in almost all models are statistically significant at the 99.9% confidence level. This result can mean that there is simply a strong relationship between strength of commitment and democracy, GDP per capita, and peace; however, this could also be a sign of multicollinearity: a high correlation between independent variables. In other words, this means that there may be a linear relationship between two or more independent variables, making it challenging to isolate the individual effect of each variable on the dependent variable. For this reason, in future research, I will add control variables to account for potential confounding factors or improve estimates' precision for the variables of primary interest.

For the second limitation of Simpson's Paradox, as mentioned previously, I will explore the interaction between variables in future research and discover whether it is an issue with the interaction between variables or caused by the varying data for commitment scores for each treaty. In all, these findings contribute to, despite their limitations, discussions on the role of democratic governance in fostering commitment to international human rights standards, how economic prosperity may influence a state's willingness to adhere to international human rights obligations, and raises questions about the impact of internal conflicts on a state's ability or willingness to engage with and commit to international human rights norms. These results invite further exploration of human rights and countries' adherence to the existing United Nations human rights treaties.

REFERENCES

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SOCIAL SCIENCES

THE EFFECTS OF RELATIONSHIP STATUS ON EPIGENETIC AGING

Kelly Luo

Franklin College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Sociology

ABSTRACT

Biological age is a measure of aging that is dependent on epigenetic alteration, and it can act as a predictor of early mortality. Increased stress has been associated with accelerated biological aging, but a healthy marriage has been seen to reduce the negative effects from stressors. This study examines the relationship between the marital status of 348 lowincome Black Americans and biological aging using data from the Promoting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) project. Multiple regression analysis was performed to assess the relationship between marital status and biological aging while controlling for gender and different cell types. The results of the study suggested that individuals who were married were more likely to have a lower biological age than individuals who were not married.

Keywords: Epigenetic aging, marital status, accelerated aging

THE EFFECTS OF RELATIONSHIP STATUS ON EPIGENETIC AGING

Epigenetic clocks have been used to distinguish between an individual’s chronological age and biological age (Levine & Crimmins, 2018). While chronological age refers to the amount of time someone has lived, biological age is a physiological degree of aging determined using DNA methylation, a heritable biological process of adding methyl groups to DNA. These DNA methylation patterns occur throughout the human genome, and they can be impacted by factors such as social environments, diet, disease, and lifestyle. In general, epigenetic aging is marked by overall global hypomethylation and hypermethylation of CpG islands, which are cytosine and guanine nucleotides separated by one phosphate group (Johnson et al., 2012). Psychological stress and stressrelated disorders, in particular, have also been linked to accelerated biological aging and early mortality (PalmaGudiel et al., 2020).

In the United States, Black Americans experience greater health disparities compared to other racial groups due to their social conditions (Williams & Rucker, 2000). African Americans also have a higher rate of individuals with age-related diseases and a shorter average life expectancy compared to other ethnic groups (Luo et al., 2022). The lack of social benefits that African Americans experience compared to their White counterparts has also led to inequities regarding their social determinants of health, such as employment, education, and access to healthcare. The increased stress and overall decreased well-being that Black Americans experience can be associated with premature biological aging.

In 2022, 17.1 percent of Black Americans were living in poverty compared to 8.6 percent of White Americans (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.). Individuals with lower incomes can have difficulty accessing healthcare and may experience environmental factors that lead to worse overall health compared to individuals with higher incomes. Americans living in impoverished communities have a higher risk for chronic diseases, mental illnesses, and lower life expectancy due to factors such as difficulty paying for insurance and medication, increased violence in the community, and a lack of access to healthy food (Braveman et al., 2010). All of these contribute to the heightened stress that impoverished individuals experience, causing them to be more prone to accelerated biological aging.

Being in a healthy marriage can help to alleviate some of the strain brought on by these chronic stressors. It is theorized that depending on the marital strengths and strains of the relationship, individuals can experience different impacts on their physical health (Slatcher & Selcuk, 2017). Partners that are responsive and supportive can buffer the negative effects from outside stressors compared to partners that are unresponsive. Black Americans have low marriage rates and a divorce rate of almost double that of White Americans (Raley et al., 2015). Recent studies have shown that healthier romantic relationships for Black Americans led to increased couple support, subsequently correlating with reduced inflammatory responses (Beach et al., 2019).

However, it is unclear whether marital status is associated with decelerated biological aging. To expand on this discovery, the current study will examine the impacts that marital status has on the biological aging of low-income Black Americans. We expect low-income Black Americans who are married to have a lower biological age compared to those who are not married due

to the diminished effects of chronic stressors. Moreover, this effect will remain even when controlling for confounding variables such as gender and cell-type composition.

METHODS

SAMPLE

This research used data from the Promoting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) project, a program that used preventative measures to enhance supportive couple relationships in low-income African American families living in the rural Southern United States (Barton et al., 2018). All study procedures were approved by the University Institutional Review Board (Study title: Protecting Strong African American Families, approval number 2012104112). ProSAAF is an in-home program dedicated to teaching couples how to effectively communicate to properly handle stressors that impact African American couples. In the program, an African American facilitator conducted an intervention session for each couple for 6 consecutive weeks. The program followed 346 couples, or 692 individuals, in a longitudinal study in which follow-up assessments were conducted after 9 months, 17 months, and 24.5 months, where participants would complete measures online. After 6 years, participants had their blood samples drawn to be assayed for genome-wide DNA methylation.Among those who consented to participate, 88% (n = 348) of the individuals involved in the 6-year follow up successfully underwent assessment, forming the current study sample. The average age of participants after the 6-year follow up was 44.61 years, with women averaging 43.02 years and men averaging 46.49 years. Additional details regarding samples are described by Lei and Beach (2023).

MEASURES

Accelerated Biological Aging. The accelerated pace of aging was measured using GrimAge, an epigenetic clock that uses DNA methylation (McCrory et al., 2021). Compared to other epigenetic clocks, GrimAge measures accelerated aging by examining the DNA methylation of 12 plasma proteins, which predicted 1030 CpG sites that predict a person’s biological age using time-to-death data.GrimAge was analyzed using the online “New Methylation Age Calculator” with the advanced analysis option and the “normalize data” (Horvath S., 2013). To convert GrimAge into a measure of accelerated aging, GrimAgeAccel was generated by deriving unstandardized residual scores from the regression of GrimAge on chronological age. These residuals showed a mean of zero and reflected both positive and negative deviations of chronological age in years. Positive scores indicated accelerated aging.

Marital Status. Marital status was measured using a binary variable, where a value of 1 represented that the participant was married, and a value of 0 indicated that the respondent was not married.

COVARIATES

Gender was controlled for (1 = females and 0 = males) and cell-type composition was measured through the “EstimateCellCounts” function in the “minfi” Bioconductor package (Aryee et al., 2014), using the reference-based method by Houseman et al. (2012). The current study estimated proportions for CD4+ T cells, CD8+T cells, Natural Killer cells, B cells, and monocytes in whole blood. These proportions were controlled to examine the relationship between marital status and accelerated biological aging, minimizing confounding influences from celltype variation. Thus, the associations reflect “intrinsic” accelerated aging measures, relatively independent of individual differences in cell types.

ANALYTIC STRATEGY

To examine the relationship between accelerated aging and marital status, a simple linear regression model was generated in R Statistical Software (v4.3.0; R Core Team 2023). A multiple linear regression analysis from the R stats package was used to see the relationship between accelerated aging along with marital status and gender (R Core Team, 2023). To incorporate the impact of different cell types on accelerated aging, another multiple linear regression analysis was conducted between accelerated aging along with relationship status, gender, CD8+ T cell counts, CD4+ T cell counts, Natural killer (NK) cell counts, B cell counts, Monocyte cell counts, and Gran cell counts. The mean, standard deviation, and median for the variables of age, relationship status, gender, and all cell counts were also calculated using the R stats package (R Core Team, 2023).

RESULTS

The participants in the study were generally middle-aged adults (x = 44.61 years, SD = 8.27, Table 1). The majority of the individuals in the study are married (60.830%); the mean of the marital status of the participants was 0.61, with 1 indicating that the individual is married and living together and 0 indicating that the individual is not married and/or not living together. 45.994% of participants are male while 54.006% of participants are female. Figure 1

A visual depiction of Model 1 illustrating the relationship between biological age and relationship status

Figure 2

A visual depiction of Model 2 illustrating the relationship between biological age, relationship status, and gender

A visual depiction of Model 3 illustrating the relationship between biological age, relationship status, gender, and multiple cell types

To uncover potential relationships between variables, various regression analyses were performed (Table 2). Model 1 reveals that relationship status is significantly and negatively associated with GrimAgeAccel (b = -0.220, p = 4.7e-5) (Figure 1). In Model 2, both marital status (b =0.234, p = 1.67e-6) and gender (b = -0.429, p < 0.001) are seen to be significantly associated with GrimAgeAccel (Figure 2). Model 3 shows that marital status (b = -0.224, p = 2.57e-6), gender (b = -0.355, p = 1.76e-10), and all cell types are significantly associated with biological age (Figure 3). The final results suggest that being married can predict decelerated biological aging even after controlling for gender and cell-type compositions.

DISCUSSION

The regression models performed in this study analyze the correlation between marital status and other variables and accelerated aging. In Table 2, Model 1 shows that marital status has a significant effect on decelerated aging (β =−0.220, p =4.7e-5), which shows that being married contributes to successful aging. Given that a value of 0 for marital status indicates that an individual is not married and/or not living together, this suggests that Black Americans who are not married will have a higher biological age compared to those who are married. This aligns with the hypothesis that married Black American individuals will have a lower biological age on average.

Similarly, Model 2 also has a significant interaction between accelerated aging and gender (β =−0.429, p =2e-16), suggesting that married individuals are associated with having a lower biological age. Given that a value of 0 for gender indicates a male and a 1 indicates a female, these results show that males are correlated with having a higher biological age and more accelerated aging compared to females.

Model 3 has a negative beta coefficient and a statistically significant p-value between accelerated aging and CD8+ T cells, CD4+ T cells, NK cells, B cells, monocytes, and granulocytes (two-way ANOVA, p=2e16). The results from Model 3 reaffirm that married individuals and females are associated with a lower biological age, but individuals with higher amounts of each cell type are also associated with a higher biological age. The significant interactions between the different cell types and accelerated biological age show the importance of controlling for cell type composition in the analyses.

The results of the analyses support the hypothesis that low-income, married Black Americans have a lower biological age and have decelerated biological aging compared to low-income, unmarried Black Americans. This implies that marital status could lessen the effects of stressors from a low-income community that may accelerate biological aging, so projects such as ProSAAF that work to enhance relationships can potentially be used in the future to decelerate the rate of biological aging for low-income individuals.

The study only examines the findings from lowincome Black Americans, so future studies should look to replicate these results using a sample of similar lowincome groups with more racial and ethnic diversity to ensure consistency between studies. Additional studies could also expand on the current study by researching if there is a difference in the correlation between different types of relationship statuses, such as married, divorced, and cohabiting, and biological aging.

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With thanks and recognition to Jere W.Morehead

THE 2024 CURO SYMPOSIUM WAS HOSTED AND ORGANIZED BY THE WITH SUPPORT FROM: OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE OF THE SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS AND PROVOST, OFFICE OF INSTRUCTION, UGA LIBRARIES, THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA FOUNDATION and the JERE W.MOREHEAD HONORS COLLEGE