Themes
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.
