The project sponsor, Gabriel Seidman, director at the Ellison institute of Technology, has asked the capstone team to identify the most cost-effective buys of pandemic surveillance, and develop a roadmap for how a given envelope of funding could be best deployed to maximize surveillance capabilities for future pandemics. How can global health leaders strategically deploy sequencing and surveillance capabilities to get the most value out of investments? In addition, Seidman has also asked the team to develop a business model for strengthening clinical research infrastructure in low and middle-income countries, as part of an overall business case for strengthening laboratories in support of pandemic preparedness. In particular, how can investments in surveillance capacity also support lab infrastructure for clinical research in low- and middle-income countries?

Global commerce drives global affairs. The $1.95 trillion global fashion industry is a notoriously problematic actor on environmental and social fronts, recognized as a significant greenhouse gas emitter, a heavy user of industrial chemicals and an exploiter of a labor force consisting primarily of women in the global South. Fashion—whether exemplified in the fast fashion of Zara and Shein, the luxury goods of Dior and Chanel, or the sneakers sold by Adidas and Nike—currently confronts an imperative to align with worldwide actions addressing both the climate crisis and calls for social justice. A dizzying variety of efforts and initiatives have been introduced to “fix” fashion, but the landscape is convoluted, and the answers are elusive. This capstone will help to illuminate the problems, enhance the available data, and propose real-world solutions.

The fashion industry, as an area of global commerce, has two overarching problems. First, its constituents have competing interests: fashion brands and conglomerates, which seek short-term growth and profit maximization, are not aligned with the companies producing goods along the global supply chain, which seek to retain direct foreign investment and are reluctant to adhere to responsible climate or fair labor practices. Second, no international laws govern the fashion industry, and no regulatory entity at the global level oversees corporate operations or ensures transparency or accountability. Instead, an array of “soft law” initiatives issued by international organizations, including the UN and the OECD, aim to fill the gaps. These efforts, while useful, are voluntary, non-binding, not connected to monitoring or governance mechanisms, and thus do not compel accountability or transparency. Likewise, a range of non-profit organizations, including the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the Wilson Center, and the NRDC, have entered the dialogue, contributing data, case studies and analyses to further the understanding of fashion’s challenges and opportunities, but they are not positioned to promulgate policies or regulations. In short, the fashion industry operates with minimal regulation and oversight and with few incentives to catalyze positive change.

Capstone students will work with The Global Fashion Agenda, a worldwide network of brands, NGOs, and businesses committed to creating a net positive fashion industry. Students in the Capstone will engage with the GFA and its partners to examine intersections of fashion, climate, and commerce, gathering data and providing an analysis of possibilities for a more inclusive a responsible fashion system. Special projects will include research around global policy and its harmonization, including ways in which the different obligations brought by ongoing legislation impact different regions. Students will present a final report and recommendations for policy and regulatory change to the GFA and will have the opportunity to participate in its events, including symposia, masterclasses, and its annual global summit.

This capstone project will examine the role of urban policies implemented by local governments across Israel in the greater project of peace. Approximately 21% of the population of Israel is not Jewish, citizens of diverse backgrounds including Muslim, Druse, Christians and Bedouins. These Israeli citizens serve in local government, civil society and the IDF. Many have families in Gaza and the West Bank, and also uphold the sovereignty of the State of Israel.

This project partners with local NGOs to access leaders in cities across Israel, with an emphasis on Arab-Israeli “shared communities” to analyze and ultimately propose public policy that delivers better public services, strengthens social bonds and deepens ties to a global community of city leaders. Students will engage with leaders in local and municipal government across the country to examine the successes (and failures) of urban policies in order to propose a set of best policy practices for successful “shared communities” with diverse populations.

Students will engage with the local government of selected representative communities and analyze how to implement policies that promote peace in towns across the country. They will draw on our partners’ network of city/regional/municipalities to optimize policy that manages local decision making, negotiations, crisis management and resident engagement, all of which are also central to safeguarding democracy. Students will focus on the Arab-Israeli communities of Tel Aviv Jaffa and Lod, the predominantly Arab cities of Sachnin and Kfar Kassem and the predominately Jewish cities of Netanya and Bat Yam. They will draw upon a combination of policy analysis and data analytics when available.

Our deliverable will be a series of policy proposals that call on best practice to standardize and continue to build on the continued success of “shared living” communities in Israel as part of a broader policy initiative for peace with regional implications.

The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) poses a significant national security challenge to the United States, and economic competition with the PRC is increasingly linked to national security issues. The PRC regime utilizes a tightly held and autonomous leadership organization to coordinate all levers of national power.U.S. national security requires a whole of government approach to deter PRC aggression in peacetime through the coordination of diplomatic, information, military, and economic activities at the CDRUSINDOPACOM level and above. The emphasis in this project will be to identify policies to impact the economic source of national power.

1. What people and institutions are important to involve in creating and implementing economic policy changes to impact national security? What key policy issues over the U.S does the PRC leadership have in developing and implementing domestic and foreign policies?
2. How can the U.S. leadership coalesce around economic competition and national security?
3. What offensive and defensive policies might the U.S. undertake through the investment and capital markets community? How do U.S. investments in China aid the PRC regime and what policy actions can the U.S. take to minimize the risk to U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets with doing business within the PRC?

The ILJ can leverage its unique position in Malta on the frontier between Africa/MENA and Europe to contribute to the global conversation around accountability for Russia’s war against Ukraine. Ever since February 2022 there has been a lot of disc discussion about how it is important to involve the nations of the “Global South” in conversations about and work on legal accountability mechanisms. But these discussions have been dominated by Europe and North America and have not managed to be inclusive enough, despite the potential relevance of numerous examples of accountability initiatives in, for example, some African countries. In this capstone, students will assist the International Institute for justice in the rule of law in creating policy initiatives around policy African accountability initiatives, and planning for an international meeting on the subject hosted by the ILJ in Malta.

The global community is confronting a “triple planetary crisis” encompassing biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and climate change. The growing scarcity of natural resources and the volatility of climactic systems have second order impacts intensifying poverty, injustice, conflict, and displacement. The competition over natural resources is leading to growing tensions and violence in many countries worldwide. While this may be linked to resource scarcity in many contexts, weak and corrupt governance systems, the poor management of natural resources, and limited access to said resources for marginalized communities stoke tensions, instigates perceptions (real or imagined) of competition, and leads to violence (and further degradation of the natural world). This is a downward spiral that must be arrested.

This capstone project will provide students the opportunity to work with the client, United Nations Development Programme, to strengthen the conflict prevention impacts of their emerging global Environmental Governance Offer through development of a policy brief. Students will deepen team working, presentation and writing skills, and data collection and policy analysis capabilities, alongside developing an awareness of environmental peacebuilding issues, and a familiarity with the United Nations policy advisory function.

Levels of democracy around the world have been declining at alarming levels over the past two decades. In 2023 the level of democracy enjoyed by the average person in the world matched the height of the Cold War in 1985, while the percentage of the global population living under autocracies has increased from 48% to 71% in the last 10 years. The U.S. views democratic backsliding as a significant national security threat. One of President Biden’s first acts upon taking office was to announce a Summit of Democracies to preserve pluralism in governance. Indeed, there have been notable “U-turn” cases of declining democracies reversing course and strengthening after positive transitional moments. This course will examine why democratic governance is declining and what can be done about it. Using a combination of data analysis and interviews with practitioners involved in successful increases in democracy, students will develop recommendations for USAID’s newly-created Bureau for Democracy, Rights and Governance on which tools of democracy promotion work and what tricks of authoritarian control must be addressed to reverse democracy’s global decline.

More than six million migrants crossed from Venezuela into Colombia and other countries in the region between 2015 and now. Included in that number are nearly a half-million Colombian citizens returning home after often spending decades in Venezuela. They do not fit neatly into categories normally associated with humanitarian assistance and protection. Effectively, they are strangers in their own country, counted neither as refugees nor internally displaced persons, and often without local community or family to help them.

In addition to the difficulties returning citizens themselves face, their unplanned arrival places a strain on the local communities and resources available to assist them. The impact is especially pronounced in areas still recovering from the damage and displacement caused by more than fifty years of internal conflict in Colombia. In response, the national government welcomes assistance, including from the United States and the international organizations it supports.

The challenges facing Colombia and its partners will become more widespread throughout the region and beyond if the United States prioritizes deportation as a means of dealing with the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border and unauthorized immigration in general. Deported migrants are likely to face the same hardships which drove their decision to leave home in the first place but with the added difficulties associated with forced return, including the possible stigma of failure, on the one hand, and of having abandoned their communities of origin, on the other. If a focus on deportation is to meet even minimum humanitarian standards, it must view the process in its entirety, from expulsion to reintegration.

Effective collaboration in Colombia will offer lessons learned and broader policy prescriptions for the U.S. administration to avoid damage to bilateral and regional relations and to help ensure respect for the dignity, rights, and well-being of migrants deported elsewhere.

This capstone course will explore how some Middle Eastern countries’ outsized ambitions in the areas of critical and emerging technologies are having an impact on the Sino-American global rivalry. The United States and the PRC are engaged in a high-stakes competition to lure petro-rich Middle Eastern states into their respective technological eco-systems. Students will explore some Middle East countries’ visions of transforming themselves into techno “middle powers,” putting the region in the crosshairs of the PRC and the U.S. as they compete on everything from telecom networks to Artificial Intelligence partnerships. They will then provide policy recommendations to the client on how the U.S. government can better position itself in the region to promote trusted tech vendors. The course will challenge students to draw upon a mix of emerging tech policy, international relations theory, and history.

For the past 40 years, Haiti has faced a steady deterioration in security, caused mainly by political crises, bad governance, corruption, and a lack of vision of the State to establish an effective security system. Over the years, the international community has tried to help solve this problem by sending in international security and stabilization missions. Unfortunately, these interventions have addressed the problem on an ad hoc basis and have had only a short-term impact.

The Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti, approved by the UN Security Council in October 2023 and led by Kenya, is the latest iteration of international support. With authority to provide operational and training support to the Haitian National Police, the MSS looks to not only address immediate insecurity, but also create the necessary security conditions for long-term stability in Haiti — and this requires local authorities to seize the opportunity for comprehensive security sector reform.

Drawing on lessons learned from comparative contexts and interviews with key local, regional and international stakeholders in Haiti, students will advise Haiti’s Haut Counseil de la Transition (High Transition Council) on a comprehensive security strategy for the country which identifies the key components of that strategy, and works to provide meaningful answers for the challenges that strategy poses.