Reports & Papers

A policy paper by former MEI Visiting Scholar Hedi Larbi on the need to enhance regional cooperation and build towards an integrated infrastructure in the Middle East to promote growth and unity in the region.

On June 23 and 24, twenty five experts met at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government under the auspices of the Geopolitics of Energy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The group, which included experts from academia, the financial sector, government, and the energy industry, spent an evening and the following full day discussing and debating the possible energy implications of a nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran.

What would be the consequences if the interim deal became, de facto, permanent?  Does the interim deal have gaps that would be fatal to any long-term arrangement?  What are the consequences if no deal is reached?  And, are such consequences better or worse than those resulting from an extension of the interim deal, or from a deal that fails to meet minimum acceptable standards? These questions, among others, were addressed at a private roundtable discussion hosted by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control on April 25, 2014.

This paper analyzes the contribution that best practices can make to the field of nuclear security by doing the following:

• Defining what is meant by best practice
• Specifying a methodology for deriving it
• Understanding the resulting characteristics of the method
• Comparing its pros and cons to other methods contributing to security, such as guidelines and regulations