Reimagining global rights and justice.

2—5 November 2023

On November 2-5 2023, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law convened its first annual Future of Rights and Governance - FORGE 2023 - Conference, themed Reimagining Global Rights and Justice.

A global gathering of scholars, practitioners, artists, scientists, lawyers, policy makers, and more.

On the 75th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the field of global rights and justice is confronted by unprecedented challenges, from the climate emergency to democratic backsliding, technological disruption, geopolitical instability, polarization and deepening inequalities. We rise to those (and other) challenges through a solution-oriented convening of scholars, practitioners, activists, policymakers from across generations, geographies, and thematic/strategic specializations. This annual conference provides a space that currently does not exist in the field and is much needed.

Taking advantage of frames from foresight analysis and design-thinking, our four days served as an opportunity to reflect on the past decade of thought and practice in order to develop future-focused experimental solutions for the next decade (2025-2035) that respond to the shifting realities of our social, economic, political, technological, and environmental landscape.

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Schedule

The gathering differed from panel-based conventional conferences by creating spaces to actively share ideas and develop experiments for change that could transform the fields of global rights and justice. Each day was one step on a journey, as we Framed (Day 1), Inspired (Day 2), Planned (Day 3), and Forged (Day 4). While we encouraged participants to attend the full event, the agenda was designed to accommodate drop-ins and participation based on participants’ availability.

Detailed Program

Democratic Renewal

As elected authoritarian leaders erode democratic institutions around the world, they tend to polarize societies through a categorical moral division of society between “us vs. them.” In so doing, they strike at the core belief of human rights in the equal dignity of all, and raise a fundamental challenge to global rights and justice. However, a wide range of actors –from social movements, political parties and multilateral institutions to civil society organizations, journalists and scholars– are rising to the challenge by launching new initiatives and institutional experiments that deepen and update democratic governance for these new conditions. At FORGE 2023, we will showcase, co-develop, and unpack ideas and solutions that contribute to democratic resilience and renewal.

Ecological Emergencies

As climate change and other ecological emergencies have become more acute, the existing global governance framework has proved grossly inadequate to deal with the existential threat that they pose for the continuation of life on the planet. With carbon emissions still rising and the impact of global warming already affecting millions of humans and non-humans, especially in vulnerable countries and communities, we need to reimagine climate governance and justice. By drawing on ideas and efforts by youth collectives, Indigenous peoples, leading voices in governments and civil society, and many others, we will contribute to speeding up and scaling up climate solutions in time to avert the worst scenarios of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other ecological challenges.

Technology

While the story of the 2010s was about how the internet and social networks empowered and connected social change actors across borders, the dominant story of the 2020s is about how those tools and other technologies such as generative artificial intelligence are being used to collect unprecedented amounts of personal data, manipulate human behavior, disrupt elections, and concentrate power in the hands of digital corporations and surveillance states. By discussing the risks posed by AI and other digital technologies, we will build on the work of leading technologists, advocates, regulators, and global rights and governance researchers that are developing promising initiatives in order to address those risks.

Rising Inequalities

The highly unequal impact of the pandemic has been a painful reminder of the fact that less than 1% of the global population owns nearly half the world’s wealth, and that economic disadvantage is closely interrelated with other systems of inequality, from racism to patriarchy to discriminatory nationalism. Intersecting inequalities not only deepen the cleavages that underlie political polarization and democratic backsliding, but they also endow a small number of extraordinarily wealthy individuals with an unprecedented power to shape domestic and global governance rules, technologies, and decisions. At FORGE 2023, we will explore the multiple effects of inequalities on rights and justice, feature promising responses to them, and foster creative and collaborative thinking about new equality- and rights-enhancing norms and practices.

Videos

Theory of Change Behind FORGE
The Inner Life of the Future: Governing with Collapse and Transformation In Mind
Indigenous Wisdom for an Ailing Planet
For The Living
Extracts from The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin
Reinventing Democracy from the Bottom Up
Renewing Democracy & Pushing Back Against Authoritarians
Evidence for Hope
Unmasked: Seaweed King
More Than Human Rights
International Justice in a Challenging World
Your Word Against Mine? Language, Expertise & Trust in the Making of the Oceans Treaty
75 Years On: The Pathway to Solutions Through Human Rights
Remarks in Response to Volker Türk