Since 1995 the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security (LENS) has hosted an annual national security law conference in Durham, N.C. The conference promotes education and discussion of the complex and diverse issues involved in national security, such as the legal and policy implications of counterterrorism operations at home and abroad, the international law of armed conflict, the impact of security issues on international business endeavors, and the ethical issues of the practice of national security law.

Carbon offsets are becoming increasingly popular and cited in many corporate sustainability plans as a key mechanism to "go green." Yet, this markets-based approach is severely limited in its ability to reduce global CO2 emissions. What are offsets and how are they hurting our progress towards a net neutral economy by 2050? What policies might we enact instead?

J. Christopher Giancarlo had a thirty-year career as a Wall Street lawyer and finance executive before emerging as leader of one of the world's most important market regulators, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, known as the CFTC. In the face of both domestic and international criticism, he led the agency to recognize the digitization of markets and foster the development of cryptocurrencies.

Investor Bill Hwang set off a storm in the stock market in March when his firm, Archegos Capital Management, and its banks, began liquidating huge positions in blue-chip companies, according to people familiar with the transactions. The sales sent individual stocks swooning and have left at least three banks with major damage. As a family office - a firm generally created to handle the investments of a single wealthy person and a small circle around them - Archegos was essentially unregulated.

The saga of GameStop has attracted the attention of trading platforms, regulators and even the White House. Just weeks ago, major hedge funds were betting big money against the success of GameStop in the form of short sales. But that didn't stop individual investors from taking those bets. Instead, a flood of retail investors joined forces on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum to send GameStop's stock soaring. The moves by some brokers to slow down trading in these stocks raised legitimate cries of unfairness to regular investors.

The era of "too big to fail" banks is far from over. Eight years after the financial crisis, banks are bigger and more complex. One critical post-crisis effort to reduce banks' risks was the adoption of the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from proprietary trading and owning significant interests in funds. But many policymakers and members of the public want more to be done, with some even calling for banks to be broken up.