Where will the conference take place?

The conference will be held in Kyoto, JPN.

What is the format of the conference?

The event is a conference format, focusing on geopolitics and international affairs.

When does the conference begin?

The conference begins in the fall.

2026 Annual Conference on Geopolitics and International Affairs

Name: 2026 Annual Conference on Geopolitics and International Affairs
Start: 2026-09-18T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-09-20T00:00:00Z
Location: Kyoto

Sep 18–20, 2026Kyoto, JapanIn-person

Registration open

The Annual Conference on Geopolitics and International Affairs is a significant gathering for scholars and practitioners in the field. Hosted in Kyoto, JPN, this event provides a platform for in-depth discussions on contemporary global challenges and the evolving landscape of international relations. Participants will engage with diverse perspectives on geopolitical trends, fostering a comprehensive understanding of the forces shaping our world. The conference is structured to encourage rigorous academic exchange and networking among attendees. It aims to dissect complex geopolitical issues, offering insights into potential future trajectories and policy implications. The setting in Kyoto, JPN, further enriches the experience, blending academic discourse with a culturally significant location.

Committees & topics

Topics
Strategic Ambiguity, Shifting Alliances, and the Emerging Multipolar Order · Political Norms, International Law, and the Dynamics of Diplomacy · Media Narratives, Disinformation, and State Propaganda · National and Regional Development as a Platform for Peace and Stability · Maritime Tensions in the Indian Ocean, East Sea, and South China Sea · Global Implications of the Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East · Japan's Role in Regional and Global Security · Technological Disruption and Its Geopolitical Consequences

Why it matters

This conference holds particular importance as it convenes experts to analyze the intricate web of global power dynamics and international cooperation. In an era marked by rapid geopolitical shifts, understanding these dynamics is crucial for effective diplomacy and policy formulation. The discussions will likely cover the interplay between state and non-state actors, the impact of technological advancements on international security, and the challenges to multilateralism.

The insights generated from this conference can inform policymakers, academics, and the public about critical global issues. By bringing together a diverse group of thinkers, the event facilitates the cross-pollination of ideas, leading to more nuanced and comprehensive analyses of international affairs. The focus on geopolitics ensures that the discussions remain grounded in the realities of power, geography, and strategic interests.

The event's location in JPN is particularly relevant given its strategic position in Asia and its significant role in global economic and political affairs. Discussions will likely touch upon regional security architectures, economic interdependencies, and the roles of key actors such as CHN and USA. The conference serves as a vital forum for anticipating future challenges and exploring collaborative solutions.

How to prepare

To maximize engagement at the conference, attendees should prepare by researching the current geopolitical landscape, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Understanding the historical context of international relations and the theoretical frameworks used to analyze them will be beneficial. Familiarity with the foreign policy stances of major global powers, including USA and CHN, will also be advantageous for contributing to discussions.

Participants should consider how different national interests, particularly those of key global players such as USA and CHN, might intersect or diverge on critical issues. Preparing specific questions or points of discussion related to emerging geopolitical flashpoints or areas of potential cooperation can enhance the quality of interaction. Reviewing recent publications and reports from reputable international relations think tanks can also provide valuable background.

Engaging with the concepts of Dynamic Analysis and Engagement Strategies will be particularly useful. Consider how these frameworks can be applied to current geopolitical challenges. Additionally, reflecting on Hidden Stakeholders in international conflicts and collaborations can lead to more insightful contributions. Understanding the nuances of Gender Dynamics Across Cultures within the context of international affairs could also offer a unique perspective.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 3 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Japan

Host nation with a vested interest in regional stability and global economic order.

Role in topic

As the host country in Kyoto, JPN plays a central role in facilitating discussions on Asian security, economic partnerships, and multilateral diplomacy. Its perspective on maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific will likely be a key theme.

United States

Global superpower with significant influence on international security and economic policies.

Role in topic

The USA's role in global governance, its alliances in Asia, and its strategic competition with other major powers will be a prominent subject of discussion, particularly concerning its impact on regional stability and international norms.

China

Rising global power with increasing economic and military influence, shaping new international orders.

Role in topic

CHN's economic initiatives, military modernization, and its growing diplomatic presence will be central to conversations about geopolitical shifts, regional power balances, and the future of international institutions.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Strategic Ambiguity, Shifting Alliances, and the Emerging Multipolar Order

The post-Cold War unipolar moment, in which the United States set the terms of the international system, has visibly given way to a more contested multipolar configuration. China's economic and military rise, Russia's revisionist posture in Europe, India's emergence as a swing power, and the growing assertiveness of middle powers such as Türkiye, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia have eroded the assumption of a single hegemon. Old alliance structures — NATO, the US treaty network in Asia, the Non-Aligned Movement — are being stretched or reinterpreted as states hedge between Washington and Beijing rather than choosing sides. Strategic ambiguity has become a central tool in this environment. The United States preserves deliberate vagueness over its commitment to defend Taiwan; China refuses to clarify the precise meaning of its nine-dash line; nuclear-armed states like Israel and, increasingly, others rely on undeclared postures. Ambiguity offers flexibility and deterrence but also raises the risk of miscalculation, particularly as BRICS+ expansion, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, AUKUS, and the Quad reshape overlapping security and economic blocs. The debate today is whether multipolarity will stabilize into a managed concert of great powers, fragment into rival techno-economic blocs, or descend into bloc-on-bloc confrontation. Delegates must weigh how rules, alliances, and signalling can be calibrated to prevent the kind of misreading that has historically preceded systemic war.

Key players

Political Norms, International Law, and the Dynamics of Diplomacy

The post-1945 international legal order rests on the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and a dense web of treaties governing trade, human rights, and the use of force. For decades these norms — sovereign equality, non-aggression, the prohibition of territorial conquest, and the responsibility to protect — provided a shared vocabulary even when violated. Recent years have severely tested that vocabulary: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the ICJ genocide case concerning Gaza, ICC arrest warrants against sitting leaders, and repeated paralysis of the UN Security Council through P5 vetoes have all raised questions about whether the rules still bind the powerful. Diplomacy itself has also shifted. Traditional bilateral and multilateral channels coexist with summit diplomacy (G7, G20, BRICS), minilateral groupings (Quad, AUKUS, I2U2), and track-two mediation by states such as Qatar, Norway, and Switzerland. Sanctions, export controls, and lawfare have become routine instruments, blurring the line between economic statecraft and coercion. Meanwhile, developing states increasingly argue that the existing legal architecture reflects a Western-defined order and demand reform of the Security Council, the international financial institutions, and investor-state dispute mechanisms. The core question for this committee is whether international law can be revitalized as a constraint on great-power behaviour, or whether it is sliding toward a more transactional system in which norms apply selectively. Delegates should consider the credibility costs of selective enforcement and the prospects for genuine institutional reform.

Key players

Media Narratives, Disinformation, and State Propaganda

Information has long been a domain of statecraft, but the digitization of global media and the rise of algorithmically curated platforms have transformed its scale and speed. Russia's RT and Sputnik, China's CGTN and Xinhua, Iran's Press TV, and Western broadcasters such as BBC and Voice of America all compete to shape narratives over conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and the Indo-Pacific. Coordinated inauthentic behaviour, AI-generated deepfakes, and troll networks now routinely target elections, peace processes, and humanitarian operations, as documented by the EU's EEAS, Meta, and independent researchers. States have responded asymmetrically. The European Union has implemented the Digital Services Act and sanctioned Kremlin-linked outlets; the United States has oscillated between First Amendment protections and disinformation task forces; China and Russia have tightened domestic information controls while exporting surveillance and content-management technologies. Many Global South states sit uneasily between these poles, wary of both Western platform dominance and authoritarian censorship models. The 2024 UN Global Principles for Information Integrity attempted to set baseline norms but lack enforcement. The central tension is between protecting open public discourse and curbing the weaponization of information. Delegates must grapple with definitions of disinformation, the responsibilities of private platforms, the role of state media, and how to safeguard journalists — a record number of whom have been killed in recent conflicts.

Key players

National and Regional Development as a Platform for Peace and Stability

The link between development and security is foundational to the UN system, articulated in the 1994 Human Development Report's concept of human security and reaffirmed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Empirical work by the World Bank's 2011 World Development Report and successive UN-World Bank Pathways for Peace studies shows that poverty, inequality, unemployment, and exclusion are strong predictors of conflict recurrence. Regions including the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, parts of Central America, and Southeast Asia illustrate how stalled development feeds insurgency, irregular migration, and state fragility. Progress on the SDGs has slowed sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic. A sovereign debt crisis is squeezing fiscal space in over fifty developing economies, while climate impacts, food-price shocks from the war in Ukraine, and tightening global financial conditions have widened the SDG financing gap to an estimated USD 4 trillion per year. Regional initiatives — the African Continental Free Trade Area, ASEAN connectivity plans, the Belt and Road, the EU's Global Gateway, and the US-led PGI — compete and sometimes complement one another as vehicles for infrastructure and growth. The committee must examine how national development strategies and regional integration can be designed not merely as economic projects but as durable foundations for peace: inclusive growth, governance reform, climate adaptation, and conflict-sensitive investment. The debate also touches debt restructuring, fair access to technology, and the reform of international financial institutions.

Key players

Maritime Tensions in the Indian Ocean, East Sea, and South China Sea

Asia's three principal maritime theatres are increasingly interconnected. In the South China Sea, China's nine-dash line claim — rejected by the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling in the Philippines v. China case — overlaps with the EEZs of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia. Standoffs at Second Thomas Shoal, Scarborough Shoal, and around Vanguard Bank have escalated through water cannon use, ramming, and the construction of militarised artificial islands. In the East China Sea, Japan and China contest the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands while North Korean missile tests over the sea (referred to in Korea as the East Sea) add a nuclear dimension. The Indian Ocean has emerged as a parallel arena. China's first overseas base in Djibouti, port investments from Gwadar to Hambantota, and a growing PLA Navy presence intersect with India's leadership of the Colombo Security Conclave, France's territorial stake via Réunion and Mayotte, and the AUKUS submarine pathway. The Red Sea crisis triggered by Houthi attacks on shipping since late 2023 has further demonstrated how chokepoints can disrupt global trade, prompting Operation Prosperity Guardian and EU Operation Aspides. The core dispute is over the interpretation and enforcement of UNCLOS — particularly freedom of navigation, the legal status of features, and the militarization of EEZs. Delegates should consider confidence-building measures, the long-stalled ASEAN-China Code of Conduct, and how to manage incidents at sea before they escalate.

Key players

Global Implications of the Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was the largest interstate war in Europe since 1945, shattering assumptions about post-Cold War territorial inviolability. The conflict has produced massive casualties, triggered Europe's biggest refugee movement since World War II, accelerated NATO enlargement to include Finland and Sweden, and prompted unprecedented Western sanctions and frozen Russian assets. It has also exposed the limits of those sanctions: Russia has maintained war financing through energy exports to Asia, parallel imports, and partnerships with Iran, North Korea, and China. In the Middle East, the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza — with tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, mass displacement, and a famine risk documented by the IPC — have widened into a regional confrontation. Hezbollah-Israel exchanges, Houthi strikes on Red Sea shipping, direct Iran-Israel missile exchanges in 2024, and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in late 2024 have redrawn the regional map. The ICJ provisional measures and ICC arrest warrants have placed international law at the centre of diplomacy. Together, the two wars are reshaping energy markets, defence spending, grain and fertilizer flows, refugee policy, and the credibility of multilateral institutions. The committee should assess spillovers to the Global South — including food insecurity in Africa and inflation worldwide — and the prospects for ceasefires, reconstruction, and post-war regional architectures.

Key players

Japan's Role in Regional and Global Security

For most of the post-war era, Japan's security identity was defined by Article 9 of its constitution, the US-Japan Security Treaty of 1960, and a self-imposed ceiling on defence spending around one percent of GDP. That posture has shifted decisively. The 2022 National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Program committed Tokyo to roughly doubling defence spending to two percent of GDP by 2027, acquiring counter-strike capabilities including Tomahawk missiles, and deepening integration with US forces. The drivers are explicit: China's military build-up and assertiveness around Taiwan and the Senkakus, North Korea's accelerating missile and nuclear programmes, and Russian activity in the Far East. Japan has simultaneously broadened its diplomatic footprint. It is a core Quad member alongside the US, India, and Australia; it has signed Reciprocal Access Agreements with Australia, the UK, and the Philippines; it joined the AUKUS Pillar II technology dialogue; and it has provided non-lethal support to Ukraine while hosting Ukrainian evacuees. Tokyo also remains a leading provider of ODA, an architect of the CPTPP, and a champion of a 'Free and Open Indo-Pacific' concept now adopted in various forms across Western capitals. The debate is whether Japan's transformation amounts to a stable new normal of 'proactive contribution to peace' or a more contested rearmament that could provoke regional countermeasures. Delegates should weigh constitutional, demographic, and fiscal constraints alongside Japan's expanding role in deterrence, technology security, and global governance.

Key players

Technological Disruption and Its Geopolitical Consequences

Frontier technologies — artificial intelligence, advanced semiconductors, quantum computing, biotechnology, and space systems — have moved to the centre of geopolitical competition. The 2022 US CHIPS and Science Act, expanded export controls on advanced chips and equipment to China, the Netherlands' restrictions on ASML EUV/DUV sales, and reciprocal Chinese controls on gallium, germanium, and graphite illustrate how supply chains have become weaponized. The rapid rise of generative AI since 2022 and military applications including autonomous drones in Ukraine and Gaza have raised acute questions about meaningful human control, addressed at the UN GGE on LAWS and in the 2023 Bletchley and 2024 Seoul AI safety summits. Digital infrastructure is similarly contested. Submarine cables, satellite constellations such as Starlink, 5G/6G networks, and data flows are now strategic assets. The EU has advanced the AI Act and Digital Services Act; China has rolled out generative AI rules and a data-security regime; the United States has pursued an executive-order approach plus voluntary commitments from frontier labs. The 2024 UN Global Digital Compact attempts to set baseline principles, while the ITU and ICANN remain key technical fora. The committee must consider how to balance innovation, security, and inclusion: preventing destabilizing AI arms races, ensuring developing countries are not locked out of compute and data, governing dual-use research, and maintaining interoperable global standards rather than a fragmented 'splinternet.'

Key players