Where will this event take place?

The event will be held in Oslo, NOR.

When does this event begin?

The event is scheduled to begin in the spring.

A Norwegian Reflection on Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape

Mar 16, 2026Oslo, NorwayVirtual

This event, held in Oslo, NOR, offers a Norwegian perspective on the evolving concept of human security amidst shifts in the global geopolitical landscape. It aims to foster a discussion on how traditional security paradigms are being challenged and re-evaluated in light of contemporary international relations. The gathering provides a platform for experts and practitioners to explore the implications of these changes for human well-being and stability.

Committees & topics

Topics
Defence in a Reordered Europe · Security Policy Beyond the Military Domain · Development Policy and the Financing Crunch · Diplomacy in an Era of Strategic Competition · Norwegian and European Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World · Humanitarian Issues and Shrinking Operating Space · Governance, Democratic Resilience and Multilateral Reform · Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape

Why it matters

The concept of human security, which prioritizes the safety and well-being of individuals over state-centric security, gains increasing relevance as global power dynamics shift. Events like this are crucial for understanding how nations like NOR, known for their commitment to humanitarian principles, are adapting their foreign policy and security strategies. The discussions will likely touch upon the interplay between state sovereignty and individual rights, a tension that is exacerbated by geopolitical competition and regional conflicts.

Furthermore, the focus on a 'changing geopolitical landscape' underscores the need for a nuanced approach to international security. Traditional alliances are being re-evaluated, and new forms of cooperation and competition are emerging. This event provides an opportunity to analyze these trends through the lens of human security, offering insights into how international actors can better protect vulnerable populations in an increasingly complex world. The insights generated can inform policy-making and humanitarian efforts globally, particularly for countries navigating similar challenges.

How to prepare

To prepare effectively for this discussion, participants should engage in a thorough review of the evolution of human security as a concept, from its origins to its current interpretations. Understanding the various dimensions of human security—economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security—will be crucial. Additionally, a strong grasp of contemporary geopolitical shifts, including the rise of new global powers and the re-alignment of traditional alliances, is essential. Consider how these shifts impact different regions and populations.

Attendees should also research NOR's foreign policy priorities and its historical engagement with human rights and humanitarian issues. Examining specific case studies where human security has been challenged or successfully implemented can provide valuable context. Finally, developing a framework for analyzing the intersection of state interests and human security concerns, perhaps utilizing concepts from the Model Diplomat lesson on "Dynamic Analysis," will enable a more robust contribution to the dialogue. Consider how different stakeholders, including those often overlooked as discussed in "Hidden Stakeholders," might be affected by policy decisions related to human security.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Norway

Advocates for a human-centric approach to security, emphasizing individual well-being and rights amidst global shifts.

Role in topic

As the host nation, NOR is a key proponent of human security, often integrating it into its foreign policy and development aid. The event reflects NOR's ongoing commitment to this framework and its desire to contribute to international discourse on the topic.

United States

Balances traditional state security interests with increasing recognition of human security, particularly in humanitarian interventions.

Role in topic

The USA's role in global security is paramount, and its approach to human security often involves a blend of national interest and humanitarian concerns. Its perspective would be critical in understanding how a major power navigates the complexities of protecting human rights while maintaining strategic stability.

Russia

Prioritizes state sovereignty and traditional security, often viewing human security as a potential interference in internal affairs.

Role in topic

RUS's perspective on human security is often contrasted with Western approaches, emphasizing non-interference and state control. Understanding this viewpoint is essential for a comprehensive discussion on the challenges of implementing human security in a multipolar world.

China

Emphasizes economic development and non-interference as foundational to human well-being, while maintaining a strong state-centric security posture.

Role in topic

CHN's growing global influence means its interpretation of human security, often framed through the lens of development and national stability, is increasingly significant. Its approach provides a different model for achieving human well-being, distinct from Western liberal frameworks.

Topics & background

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

Defence in a Reordered Europe

European defence policy has been transformed since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. NATO has expanded to include Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024), shifting the Nordic-Baltic balance and giving the Alliance a continuous northern flank from the Arctic to the Black Sea. Defence spending across NATO has climbed sharply, with most members now meeting or exceeding the 2% of GDP target agreed at Wales in 2014, and the 2023 Vilnius and 2024 Washington summits treating 2% as a floor rather than a ceiling. For Norway, this has meant accelerated investment in maritime surveillance in the High North, F-35 integration, and host-nation support arrangements under the 2022 Supplementary Defence Cooperation Agreement with the United States. The core dispute today is how to sustain deterrence and defence against Russia while simultaneously building European defence-industrial capacity that is less dependent on a potentially inward-looking United States. Debates over the EU's European Defence Industrial Strategy, joint procurement, and ammunition production targets sit alongside national questions about conscription, stockpiles, and readiness. Arctic militarisation, undersea cable and pipeline security after the Nord Stream and Baltic Sea incidents, and the integration of AI and uncrewed systems into doctrine are now central concerns rather than peripheral ones.

Key players

Security Policy Beyond the Military Domain

Security policy has broadened well beyond traditional military defence. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially after 9/11, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, states have integrated hybrid threats, cyber operations, energy security, supply-chain resilience, and disinformation into their national security strategies. The 2023 EU Strategic Compass, NATO's 2022 Strategic Concept, and Norway's 2024 long-term defence plan all frame security as a whole-of-society challenge that crosses the civilian-military divide. The central tension is between comprehensive security — protecting populations from a wide spectrum of risks — and the risk of securitising everything, which can crowd out civilian governance and erode rights. Sabotage of undersea infrastructure in the Baltic, GPS jamming in northern Europe, foreign interference in elections, and the weaponisation of migration on EU borders have all forced policymakers to develop new legal and institutional tools. At the UN level, the OEWG on ICTs continues to negotiate norms of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace, while the Security Council remains divided on how to treat cyber and hybrid incidents under the Charter.

Key players

Development Policy and the Financing Crunch

Development policy is in its most difficult moment since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda. The combined shocks of COVID-19, rising interest rates, the war in Ukraine, and climate disasters have pushed many low-income countries into debt distress, with the IMF and World Bank reporting that roughly 60% of low-income countries are at high risk of or already in distress. The G20 Common Framework for debt treatment has produced slow and uneven results, and OECD donors are diverting aid budgets to in-donor refugee costs and to Ukraine, putting Sub-Saharan Africa under particular strain. The 2025 Fourth Financing for Development Conference (FfD4) in Sevilla aimed to revive the development finance architecture, but North-South divisions over taxation, debt, and SDR reallocation remain wide. Norway has historically positioned itself as a high-quality donor, exceeding the 0.7% ODA/GNI target and championing health, education, and climate financing. The core policy dispute today is whether development cooperation should be reframed as a tool of geoeconomic competition with China's Belt and Road and the EU's Global Gateway, or whether it must remain anchored in poverty reduction and the SDGs. Climate finance — including the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund agreed at COP28 — is now inseparable from this debate.

Key players

Diplomacy in an Era of Strategic Competition

Diplomatic practice is under pressure from intensifying great-power competition and the erosion of arms control and confidence-building regimes. The collapse of the INF Treaty (2019), Russia's suspension of New START (2023), and stalled negotiations on a successor framework have hollowed out the architecture that managed superpower risk for decades. At the same time, the Security Council remains deadlocked on Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan, pushing diplomacy into smaller formats — the G7, BRICS+, regional organisations, and ad hoc coalitions — and into back-channel mediation by states such as Norway, Qatar, Oman, and Switzerland. The core issue is whether classical state-to-state diplomacy can adapt to a multipolar landscape where middle powers, non-state actors, and digital platforms shape outcomes. Norway's tradition of peace and reconciliation diplomacy — from the Oslo Accords to facilitation roles in Colombia, the Philippines, and Venezuela — illustrates both the value and the limits of quiet diplomacy when major powers are not aligned. Debates over the future of UN reform, including Security Council enlargement and use of the veto, sit alongside questions about how to keep dialogue channels open with Russia, Iran, and other adversaries without legitimising their conduct.

Key players

Norwegian and European Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World

Foreign policy for small and middle powers has become significantly more complex since 2022. The convergence of war in Europe, conflict in the Middle East, intensifying US-China rivalry, and the partial retreat of the rules-based order has forced states to balance values-based commitments — human rights, international law, multilateralism — with hard interests in energy, technology, and security. Norway's 2024 White Paper on foreign and security policy explicitly frames this as a shift from a benign to a contested international environment, while remaining outside the EU but inside the EEA and NATO. The core dispute is how to position non-aligned and aligned middle powers between Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and an increasingly assertive Global South coalition. Issues range from sanctions enforcement and export controls on dual-use technology, to navigating ICJ and ICC proceedings on Gaza and Ukraine, to the Arctic Council's partial paralysis following Russia's chairmanship and the 2022 pause. Foreign policy is now inseparable from industrial policy, climate policy, and migration policy, complicating traditional ministerial silos.

Key players

Humanitarian Issues and Shrinking Operating Space

The humanitarian system is confronting record needs against flat or declining funding. OCHA's 2024 Global Humanitarian Overview identified nearly 300 million people in need of assistance, driven by conflicts in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar, the eastern DRC, and the Sahel, compounded by climate-related disasters. Sudan's war since April 2023 has produced the world's largest displacement crisis, with more than 10 million people internally displaced and famine confirmed in parts of Darfur. In Gaza, humanitarian access has been severely constrained, and attacks on aid workers reached record levels in 2023 and 2024. The core issue is the erosion of international humanitarian law: deliberate strikes on hospitals and aid convoys, the use of starvation as a method of warfare, and the obstruction of access by parties to conflict. Donor fatigue, the politicisation of aid, and the imposition of counter-terrorism financing rules on humanitarian operations further constrain principled action. Norway, as a major humanitarian donor and host of the Refugee Convention's normative tradition, has pressed for stronger protection of civilians, accountability mechanisms, and reform toward more localised, anticipatory aid.

Key players

Governance, Democratic Resilience and Multilateral Reform

Global governance is under simultaneous strain from democratic backsliding, institutional gridlock, and contested legitimacy. V-Dem and Freedom House have documented nearly two decades of net democratic decline, with elections in more than 70 countries in 2024 producing mixed results for liberal democracy. At the multilateral level, the UN Security Council's paralysis on Ukraine and Gaza, the WTO's dispute settlement crisis, and disputes over IMF and World Bank quota reform have fuelled calls from the Global South for a more representative order. The 2024 Pact for the Future attempted to relaunch multilateral cooperation, but implementation remains uneven. The core dispute is between those seeking incremental reform of existing institutions — Security Council enlargement, IFI quota rebalancing, stronger UN human rights mechanisms — and those pushing for parallel structures such as an expanded BRICS, new development banks, and regional security architectures. Within states, governance debates focus on rule of law, anti-corruption, judicial independence, and the regulation of digital platforms and AI. Norway's emphasis on transparency, anti-corruption (including through the EITI it co-founded), and rule-of-law support reflects a particular Nordic approach to governance assistance.

Key players

Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape

The concept of human security, formalised in UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report and elaborated in GA Resolution 66/290 (2012), reframes security around the protection of individuals from chronic threats — hunger, disease, repression, environmental harm — and from sudden disruptions to daily life. Norway, alongside Canada and Japan, has historically championed this people-centred lens, supporting initiatives from the Ottawa Treaty on landmines to the Responsibility to Protect and the Safe Schools Declaration. Today the framework is being tested by overlapping crises: armed conflict affecting record numbers of civilians, climate-driven displacement, pandemics, and the human-rights impacts of digital technologies. The central debate is whether human security can serve as more than a normative aspiration in an era of renewed great-power rivalry. Critics argue it has been crowded out by hard-security imperatives since 2022; defenders argue that precisely these conditions — war crimes in Ukraine and Gaza, famine in Sudan, climate impacts in the Pacific and Sahel — make a human-security lens more, not less, relevant. Operationalising the framework today involves the Pact for the Future, the right to a healthy environment recognised in GA Resolution 76/300, the Loss and Damage Fund, and emerging discussions on AI governance and human rights.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for A Norwegian Reflection on Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Trump's Economic Reset

GOP Promotes Trump's Tax Savings on Deadline

Howard Lutnick's Senate Testimony on 2027 Bud

Bhagwant Mann Launches Punjab Campaign Summit

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Advanced Negotiation

Conflict Resolution

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

By committee

Frequently asked questions

A Norwegian Reflection on Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape

Mar 16, 2026Oslo, NorwayVirtual

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Defence in a Reordered Europe · Security Policy Beyond the Military Domain · Development Policy and the Financing Crunch · Diplomacy in an Era of Strategic Competition · Norwegian and European Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World · Humanitarian Issues and Shrinking Operating Space · Governance, Democratic Resilience and Multilateral Reform · Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Norway

Advocates for a human-centric approach to security, emphasizing individual well-being and rights amidst global shifts.

Role in topic

United States

Balances traditional state security interests with increasing recognition of human security, particularly in humanitarian interventions.

Role in topic

Russia

Prioritizes state sovereignty and traditional security, often viewing human security as a potential interference in internal affairs.

Role in topic

China

Emphasizes economic development and non-interference as foundational to human well-being, while maintaining a strong state-centric security posture.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

Defence in a Reordered Europe

Key players

Security Policy Beyond the Military Domain

Key players

Development Policy and the Financing Crunch

Key players

Diplomacy in an Era of Strategic Competition

Key players

Norwegian and European Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World

Key players

Humanitarian Issues and Shrinking Operating Space

Key players

Governance, Democratic Resilience and Multilateral Reform

Key players

Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for A Norwegian Reflection on Human Security in a Changing Geopolitical Landscape.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Trump's Economic Reset

GOP Promotes Trump's Tax Savings on Deadline

Howard Lutnick's Senate Testimony on 2027 Bud

Bhagwant Mann Launches Punjab Campaign Summit

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Advanced Negotiation

Conflict Resolution

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

Oslo Security Conference 2026

Arctic Frontiers 2026

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Poland and Norway facing turbulent times – how can they improve their cooperation?

Navigating the new world order. Are we in a middle power moment?

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Frequently asked questions