Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world

Past Event
Seminar

Countering WMD-related Illicit Trade: Insights from White Collar and Business Crime

Open to the Public

Speaker: Daniel Salisbury, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Individuals and entities from the private sector have long contributed to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), acting as middlemen and suppliers. Over the past decades, trade in WMD-related goods has become increasingly regulated, and illicit trade increasingly criminalized. Despite the clear role that these actors have played in recent proliferation cases, supplying North Korea and Iran among others, the conceptual literature on proliferation behavior has largely continued to focus on the state level. This seminar will draw on concepts from criminology, and particularly the study of white collar crime, to provide insights into the behavior of these non-state suppliers and middlemen, and to generate more effective means of countering their activities.
 

Date: Time: - Location: Littauer Building - Fainsod Room, 324
Gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment recovered from the BBC China in Italy, en route to Libya, in 2003. They were later taken to the Y-12 complex in the USA where this picture was taken (with a Y-12 guard also in the picture).

Description

Individuals and entities from the private sector have long contributed to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), acting as middlemen and suppliers. Over the past decades, trade in WMD-related goods has become increasingly regulated, and illicit trade increasingly criminalized. Despite the clear role that these actors have played in recent proliferation cases, supplying North Korea and Iran among others, the conceptual literature on proliferation behavior has largely continued to focus on the state level. This seminar will draw on concepts from criminology, and particularly the study of white collar crime, to provide insights into the behavior of these non-state suppliers and middlemen, and to generate more effective means of countering their activities.
 

Speaker

Daniel Salisbury is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. His research focuses on nonproliferation and specifically, illicit WMD-related trade and the means to counter it. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (2016–2017). Before joining CNS, he was a Research Associate at the Center for Science and Security Studies (CSSS) at King's College London (2011–2016) where he worked on various nonproliferation, export control, and sanctions capacity building workshops. Daniel earned his Ph.D. in War Studies, M.A. in Science and Security and B.A. in War Studies from King's College London.