PROHIBITING BOYCOTTS OF ISRAEL: AN UNLAWFUL BURDEN ON SINCERE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF NONVIOLENCE.

Certain entities engage in acts of violence. Firearms manufacturers make weapons that kill people. Fossil fuel companies cause environmental degradation that leads to the deaths of millions of people. The government of Israel, the main subject of this Comment, uses overwhelming violence in its decades-long war against the Palestinian people. United States citizens have used their constitutional rights to economically boycott these entities to try to change their behavior. In response, state legislatures have made it illegal for their states' agencies to contract with a person that participates in these boycotts. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the highest court so far to rule on these "anti-boycott" laws, upheld an Arkansas law prohibiting boycotts of Israel by holding that boycotts are not speech, contrary to longstanding judicial precedent. While this Comment agrees that antiboycott laws violate free speech rights, it proposes that these laws should also be challenged as infringing on the exercise of sincere religious beliefs ofnonviolence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]