Main Edition
A Meeting of Minds on Central Bank Digital Currencies for the United States: Commentaries from Participants in the Harvard National Security Journal’s October 14, 2022 Symposium on Digital Currencies and National Security
by Howell Jackson[*], Antionette Schoar[†], and Timothy Massad[‡] [Commentaries in PDF is available at this link] [*] James S. Reid, Jr., Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. [†] Stewart C. Myers-Horn Family Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management. Ph.D. in Economics, University of Chicago. [‡] Director of the Digital Assets Policy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar Rahmani Center for Business and Government. Former Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and former...
An Apparent Trilemma for Cross-Border Central Bank Digital Currencies
Giulia Fanti [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction Today, most central banks worldwide are exploring some form of central-bank digital currency (CBDC), a digital form of central bank money accessible to the public.1 There has been particular interest in cross-border CBDCs (also commonly called multi-CBDCs), which can be used to transfer assets from a CBDC ledger in one jurisdiction (typically one country) to another.2 Important open questions surround how to design multi-CBDCs. For...
Cryptocurrencies and National Security: The Case of Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing
Shlomit Wagman [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction Cryptocurrencies can be a haven for criminals, terrorists, and sanction evaders. The early, romantic ideology underlying blockchain technology envisioned a decentralized currency without geographical boundaries, governmental supervision, central bank control, or any identification required. Cryptocurrency was meant to be a fast, cheap, and reliable way of transferring value among strangers. In 2014, the Financial Action Task Force...
Symbiotic Security and Free Speech
Michael J. Glennon [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction It has long been axiomatic that the Constitution limits only action by the state. Private actors cannot abridge freedom of speech; only the government can be charged with that. It has more recently become accepted that the government’s own speech is insulated from constitutional constraints; government could hardly promote its policies if it were limited, say, by First Amendment viewpoint neutrality requirements. The “state action...
Volume 13, Issue 2
Dueling over Dual_EC_DRGB: The Consequences of Corrupting a Cryptographic Standardization Process By Nadiya Kostyuk and Susan Landau In recent decades, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which develops cryptographic standards for non-national security agencies of the U.S. government, has emerged as the de facto international source for cryptographic standards. But in 2013, Edward Snowden disclosed that the National Security Agency had subverted the integrity of a NIST cryptographic standard—the...
The Lexicon of Terror: Crystallization of the Definition of “Terrorism” Through the Lens of Terrorist Financing & The Financial Action Task Force
Juan Zarate and Sarah Watson [*] [Full text of this Article in PDF is available at this link] Introduction It is widely assumed that there is no accepted international definition of terrorism, in part because global views on what constitutes terrorism are so politically polarized as to prevent arriving at any meaningful common ground. This view is widespread both in popular culture and the academic community despite the decades of work on this issue at the United Nations (UN), the existence of several UN conventions addressing...
Online Edition
Five Legal Takeaways from the Syrian War
Speech—The United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims: The Newest Federal Court Experiment, Past, Present, and Future
A Quantum Leap in International Law on Cyberwarfare: An Analysis of International Cooperation with Quantum Computing on the Horizon
In our latest Student Article, Dominic Rota, Belmont University College of Law ’18, discusses the implications of the advent of quantum computing on the international legal regulation of cyberwarfare.
Intelligence Collection of the People, by the People and for the People: How Crowdsourcing the Detection of WMDs Could Change the Way We Protect Ourselves
by Jonathan Fischbach
Not Your Grandfather’s Zone of Twilight: Civil Military Relationships in Debatably Legal Precision Strikes
by Major Dan Maurer—Limited strikes of debatable legality, such as the Trump Administration’s strike against Syrian chemical weapons facilities last spring, are likely to continue happening. Major Dan Maurer of the U.S. Army outlines 13 generic questions to guide senior military officers as they discuss planning these missions with civilian decision-makers.
5G, Standard-Setting, and National Security
by Eli Greenbaum—The Trump Administration recently blocked Broadcom’s proposed acquisition of Qualcomm, citing concerns about Chinese involvement in the process of establishing a technical standard for 5G networks. Eli Greenbaum of Yigal Arnon & Co. argues that these concerns defy longstanding U.S. positions and are unfounded.
Overseeing or Interfering? A Functional Alternative to Congressional Oversight in Intelligence and Operations
by Major Sean B. Zehtab—How should we design oversight of cyber-operations and intelligence gathering as such operations will increasingly take place at the tactical level? Major Sean B. Zehtab of the U.S. Army argues that we should look to the Command Operations Review Board of the U.S. Special Operations Command for guidance.
Water Scarcity: The Most Understated Global Security Risk
By Major David J. Stuckenberg and Dr. Anthony L. Contento — This Article examines the global state of freshwater scarcity and the often-neglected linkages of water scarcity to economic, social, political, legal, and security consequences arising from disruptions, failures, or attacks on water access and distribution systems. Poorly understood links between access to adequate water and national stability pose severe global security risks.
The Ebola Fighters: Uncharted Territory, or a Repeat of Past Shortcomings?
By Maj. Richard Hossfeld; Brooke Hossfeld; Maj. David Dixon — Instead of waiting passively for effective WHO reform, the United States Government—which currently provides more funding to the WHO than any other member—should act as the authority to influence disease response coordination and declare epidemic and/or pandemic outbreak on behalf of the world.