International Security & Defense

544 Items

US Climate Policy graphic

Getty Images

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Climate Change Requires New Approaches to Disaster Planning and Response

    Author:
  • David J. Hayes
| June 2023

To date, most of the climate policy attention has been focused on the need to reduce the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change and, as a corollary, to accelerate the U.S. economy’s transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Yet climate change also is straining our nation’s emergency response capabilities as traditional climate-infused disasters such as hurricanes and floods become more frequent and destructive. At the same time, the emergency response community faces new challenges as slower-to-develop climate impacts like drought, heat, and wildfire increasingly are hitting an acute tipping points and becoming life- and livelihood-threatening disasters.

Earth represented by binary code and lines

Getty Images

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Reach, Choice, and Transparency: Governing the Internet in the 21st Century

| May 2023

As inventions go, the Internet stacks up with the best of them: the lightbulb, the automobile, even fire. In its first thirty years, the Internet’s worldwide adoption and breadth of application has exceeded any other technological advance in history. It expands our reach by bringing people, experiences, and things to us with the click of a mouse. It connects us to an increasing number of gadgets, from smartphones to voice kiosks and soon self-driving vehicles that will no doubt converse with us while we commute, happily oblivious to the traffic around us. We revel in our newfound agility and versatility. Importantly, our precious network kept us sane during a worldwide pandemic and enabled the world to work remotely while most of its population was frozen at home. For resilience against catastrophes alone, the Internet has become indispensable.

A worker wearing a mask a performing work

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Combatting Forced Labor in Global Supply Chains

    Authors:
  • Sarah Bishop
  • Tom Plotkin
  • Emanuel Ghebregergis
| January 2023

In recent years, the U.S. government has accelerated its efforts to eradicate forced labor from global supply chains. Those efforts have been led primarily by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which has been actively enforcing a long-standing statutory prohibition on the importation of goods made with forced labor, bolstered by recent legislation that has provided it with more substantial regulatory authority. CBP’s evolving enforcement regime suffers, however, from certain shortcomings, including a lack of adequate incentives and legal protections for importers and their suppliers to work collaboratively with the government to craft remediation programs that address the root causes of forced labor.

This photo taken from night video provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows a smuggler dropping children from the top of border barrier in Santa Teresa, N.M.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection via AP

Policy Brief - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Dismantling Migrant Smuggling Networks in the Americas

    Author:
  • Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera
| June 27, 2022

This paper proposes the dismantling of migrant smuggling networks through intelligence and targeted actions as important elements both of border security and enforcement and humanitarian migration management. In addition to these policies, the U.S. government should collaborate closely with other governments to cooperatively redesign asylum systems.

Trucks drive through floodwaters at the U.S.-Canada border crossing in Sumas, Washington. 

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

Policy Brief - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Toward an Integrated North American Emergency Response System

| June 23, 2022

Establishing a North American approach is a key component to more comprehensive and effective emergency management structured to meet current and emerging threats. This paper briefly examines the history of emergency response coordination among the United States, Mexico, and Canada, highlighting some of the major bilateral, regional and non-governmental agreements.