What is the primary focus of the ICPRGS event?

The conference focuses on the intersection of political risk and global security, exploring contemporary challenges and future trends in these critical areas.

Who is the target audience for this conference?

The conference is designed for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in political risk assessment and global security strategies.

International Conference on Political Risk and Global Security (ICPRGS)

Name: International Conference on Political Risk and Global Security (ICPRGS)
Start: 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z
Location: Auckland

Aug 29, 2026Auckland, New ZealandIn-person

Registration open

The International Conference on Political Risk and Global Security (ICPRGS) is a significant academic event focusing on critical issues at the intersection of political dynamics and worldwide security. Held in Auckland, NZL, this conference serves as a platform for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to dissect contemporary challenges and explore future trends in political risk assessment and global security strategies. The event aims to foster a comprehensive understanding of the complex factors shaping the international landscape. Participants will engage in discussions covering a broad spectrum of topics, from geopolitical shifts and regional instabilities to emerging threats and innovative approaches to conflict resolution. The conference's setting in NZL provides a unique backdrop for examining these global issues, encouraging diverse perspectives on how political decisions influence security outcomes across different regions.

Committees & topics

Topics
Political Risk in a Multipolar Era · Global Security and the Return of Great-Power Competition · Reforming Global Governance · International Relations in a Fragmenting Order · Law and Policy in Conflict Zones · Diplomacy and Peacebuilding Strategies · Societal Resilience to Compound Shocks · Human Rights Under Strain

Why it matters

Understanding political risk and global security is paramount in an increasingly interconnected world. Geopolitical events in one region can have cascading effects globally, impacting economies, societies, and international relations. This conference offers a crucial forum for analyzing these interdependencies and developing robust frameworks for anticipating and mitigating potential crises.

For diplomats and international relations professionals, the insights gained from ICPRGS are invaluable. The discussions will likely touch upon the evolving nature of state and non-state actors, the challenges of multilateral cooperation, and the efficacy of various diplomatic tools in managing security threats. Staying abreast of these developments is essential for effective foreign policy formulation and implementation.

The conference also addresses the critical need for interdisciplinary approaches to global security. Political risk is not solely a matter of statecraft; it encompasses economic vulnerabilities, social unrest, environmental factors, and technological disruptions. By bringing together experts from various fields, ICPRGS facilitates a holistic examination of these complex issues, promoting a more integrated understanding of global security challenges.

How to prepare

To maximize engagement at ICPRGS, attendees should familiarize themselves with current geopolitical flashpoints and emerging security paradigms. A strong grasp of contemporary international relations theories will provide a valuable foundation for understanding the diverse perspectives presented during the conference. Consider reviewing recent analyses from institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations to gain a deeper understanding of ongoing global security debates.

Participants should be prepared to discuss the implications of political instability on international cooperation and the role of various actors in maintaining global order. Reflecting on case studies of successful and unsuccessful interventions, as well as the challenges of implementing international agreements, will enrich contributions to the discussions. Given the conference's focus, an understanding of how political decisions in one region can create ripple effects globally will be particularly pertinent.

Country perspectives

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

New Zealand

As the host nation, NZL is likely to emphasize multilateralism, international law, and regional stability in the Pacific, advocating for peaceful resolutions to global security challenges.

Role in topic

NZL, as a small island nation with a strong commitment to international cooperation, plays a role in promoting a rules-based international order and addressing global security issues through diplomatic means. Its perspective often highlights the impact of global events on smaller states and the importance of collective security.

United States

The USA will likely focus on its role as a global security guarantor, emphasizing strategic alliances, counter-terrorism efforts, and managing great power competition.

Role in topic

The USA is a major global actor with significant influence on political risk and global security through its military capabilities, economic power, and extensive network of alliances. Its perspective often centers on maintaining international stability and addressing threats to its national interests and those of its allies.

China

CHN's perspective will likely center on its growing global influence, economic security, and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs, while advocating for a multipolar world order.

Role in topic

CHN is a rising global power whose economic and political decisions significantly impact international security. Its approach to political risk often involves safeguarding its economic interests, expanding its geopolitical reach, and promoting its vision of global governance.

Russia

RUS will likely highlight its national security interests, regional influence, and critiques of perceived Western hegemony, advocating for a balance of power in international relations.

Role in topic

RUS is a key player in global security, particularly concerning European stability, energy security, and strategic arms control. Its perspective often reflects its historical security concerns and its desire to assert its influence on the international stage.

Topics & background

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

Political Risk in a Multipolar Era

Political risk — the exposure of states, investors, and populations to losses from political decisions, instability, or violence — has become a central analytical concern as the post-Cold War unipolar moment recedes. The 2008 financial crisis, the Arab Spring, Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and renewed great-power competition between the United States and China have all expanded the scope of what analysts consider political risk: sanctions exposure, export controls, resource nationalism, contested elections, coups (notably across the Sahel since 2020), and the weaponization of supply chains. The core dispute is methodological and political. Governments and firms increasingly disagree on whether political risk should be managed through diversification and hedging, or through alignment with security blocs — "friend-shoring," industrial policy, and outbound investment screening. Developing economies argue that Western-led risk frameworks penalize them while ignoring instability generated by sanctions regimes and unilateral measures. The IMF, World Bank, and OECD have all flagged geopolitical fragmentation as a material drag on global growth. Today, political risk sits at the intersection of foreign policy and economic governance. Debates focus on how to discipline the use of secondary sanctions, how to protect critical minerals supply chains, and how to keep capital flowing to fragile states without entrenching authoritarian rents.

Key players

Global Security and the Return of Great-Power Competition

The global security order built after 1945 — anchored in the UN Charter, the NPT, and a network of arms-control treaties — has eroded substantially since the mid-2010s. Russia's annexation of Crimea (2014) and full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022), the collapse of the INF Treaty in 2019, the suspension of New START participation in 2023, and rising tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea have all signaled the return of sustained great-power competition. Simultaneously, regional conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and the Sahel have stretched humanitarian and peacekeeping capacity. The central dispute concerns the legitimacy and adequacy of existing security institutions. Russia and China argue that NATO enlargement and US alliance networks in the Indo-Pacific are themselves destabilizing; the United States and its allies counter that revisionist powers are violating sovereignty norms and rules on the non-use of force. Meanwhile, emerging technologies — autonomous weapons, hypersonics, cyber operations, and counter-space capabilities — are outpacing the treaty architecture intended to govern them, as the stalled GGE on LAWS and PAROS negotiations illustrate. Today, global security debates focus on restoring strategic stability between nuclear powers, preventing horizontal proliferation (notably around Iran and the DPRK), and building norms for cyber and space behavior before crises force ad hoc rules.

Key players

Reforming Global Governance

Global governance — the system of institutions, treaties, and norms that manage transnational problems — was largely designed in the 1944–1948 period (UN, IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO) and supplemented by regimes for climate, health, and human rights. Successive shocks have exposed its limits: the WTO Appellate Body's paralysis since 2019, the slow COVID-19 response, deadlocks in the UN Security Council on Syria and Ukraine, and persistent underrepresentation of African, Latin American, and small-island states in core decision-making bodies. The core dispute is over reform versus replacement. The G77, African Union, and BRICS+ grouping demand expanded representation — including Security Council enlargement, IMF quota reform, and a UN tax convention currently being negotiated — while many established powers prefer incremental adjustments. The Secretary-General's Our Common Agenda and the 2024 Pact for the Future attempt to bridge these positions but have produced few binding commitments. Today, global governance debates center on financing for development under the FfD4 process, AI governance following the 2024 GA resolution, climate finance after COP28's loss-and-damage fund, and whether parallel institutions (NDB, AIIB, SCO) complement or fragment the multilateral order.

Key players

International Relations in a Fragmenting Order

International relations as practiced today reflect the layered legacies of the Westphalian state system, post-1945 multilateralism, and post-1989 liberal globalization. The 2010s brought a marked shift: the rise of China to near-peer status with the United States, Russian assertiveness, Brexit, the rise of economic nationalism, and a more crowded field of middle powers — Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, Indonesia — pursuing independent foreign policies. The central dispute concerns the organizing principle of the system. Washington and many European capitals frame it as a contest between rules-based order and authoritarian revisionism; Beijing and Moscow describe it as a transition toward multipolarity. Many states in the Global South reject binary alignment, pursuing what some call "strategic hedging" or "multi-alignment," exemplified by India's simultaneous participation in the Quad, BRICS, and SCO. The expansion of BRICS in 2024 and the diplomatic mediation roles played by Qatar, Türkiye, and Oman signal a more diffuse distribution of agency. Today, the key questions concern whether the system tips toward bipolar US–China rivalry, a fragmented multipolarity, or a renewed multilateralism, and how middle powers will shape that outcome on issues from Ukraine to the Red Sea to AI governance.

Key players

Law and Policy in Conflict Zones

International humanitarian law (IHL) — codified in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, their Additional Protocols, the Rome Statute (1998), and customary law — governs the conduct of hostilities and the protection of civilians. Its enforcement has always been uneven, but the 2020s have produced unprecedented strain: the ICC has issued arrest warrants concerning the situation in Ukraine (2023) and senior Israeli and Hamas figures regarding Gaza (2024), and the ICJ is hearing genocide cases brought against Israel by South Africa and against Myanmar by The Gambia. The core dispute concerns selectivity, sovereignty, and enforcement. Critics argue that international criminal accountability is applied inconsistently between Western-aligned and non-aligned defendants. States including the US, Russia, China, India, and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute, limiting ICC reach. Meanwhile, sieges, attacks on hospitals and humanitarian workers, the use of starvation as a method of warfare, and the rise of urban warfare have prompted calls to clarify and strengthen IHL — including in Sudan, where the SAF–RSF war has produced the world's largest displacement crisis. Today, debates focus on humanitarian access, accountability mechanisms (hybrid tribunals, universal jurisdiction), the legal status of private military contractors, and the application of IHL to cyber operations and autonomous weapons.

Key players

Diplomacy and Peacebuilding Strategies

Modern peacebuilding emerged from the 1992 Agenda for Peace and was institutionalized through the UN Peacebuilding Commission (2005), the Sustaining Peace agenda (2016), and the Women, Peace and Security framework (UNSCR 1325, 2000). The record is mixed: successful transitions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Colombia coexist with the unraveling of agreements in South Sudan, Libya, Mali, and Ethiopia. Recent years have also seen a shift from UN-led mediation toward regional and ad hoc formats — the African Union in the Horn of Africa, Qatar and Egypt on Gaza ceasefires, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia on Black Sea grain and prisoner exchanges, and China's 2023 brokering of Saudi–Iranian rapprochement. The core dispute concerns who mediates, on what terms, and with what leverage. Liberal peacebuilding's emphasis on elections, market reform, and transitional justice has been criticized as externally imposed; alternatives emphasize elite bargains, hybrid governance, and locally led processes. UN peacekeeping is contracting — MINUSMA's 2023 withdrawal from Mali and MONUSCO's drawdown in the DRC illustrate political pushback — even as demand for conflict prevention grows. Today, key questions involve financing peacebuilding (the Peacebuilding Fund remains chronically underfunded), integrating climate and security, and adapting mediation to conflicts involving non-state armed groups, transnational criminal networks, and digital information warfare.

Key players

Societal Resilience to Compound Shocks

Societal resilience — the capacity of communities and institutions to absorb, adapt to, and recover from shocks — has moved from a niche disaster-management concept to a central security and development priority. The COVID-19 pandemic, escalating climate disasters, energy and food price shocks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure (Colonial Pipeline 2021, Viasat 2022), and disinformation campaigns around elections have demonstrated how compound, cross-border shocks can cascade through health, economic, and information systems. The core debates concern responsibility and design. NATO's 2023 resilience commitments, the EU's Critical Entities Resilience Directive, and the African Union's Continental Disaster Risk Financing Strategy reflect divergent models — from securitized civil defense to development-led approaches. The Sendai Framework (2015–2030) provides the baseline, but financing gaps, particularly for least-developed and small island developing states, remain wide. Misinformation and the erosion of public trust in institutions have introduced a cognitive dimension to resilience that lacks consensus norms. Today, resilience policy focuses on protecting critical infrastructure (energy grids, undersea cables, water and food systems), preparing for the next pandemic under the WHO pandemic accord negotiations, hardening democratic processes against foreign interference, and integrating climate adaptation finance with security planning.

Key players

Human Rights Under Strain

The international human rights system is anchored in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two 1966 Covenants (ICCPR, ICESCR), supplemented by treaty bodies, the Human Rights Council, the Universal Periodic Review, and OHCHR. Over the past decade, the system has faced sustained pressure: democratic backsliding in multiple regions, mass atrocities in Xinjiang, Myanmar, Tigray, Ukraine, and Gaza, restrictions on civic space, and the criminalization of LGBTQ+ identities in several jurisdictions. At the same time, new frontiers — generative AI, climate displacement, and surveillance technology — are testing whether existing instruments are fit for purpose. The core dispute concerns universality versus sovereignty. A growing bloc of states argues that human rights mechanisms are politicized and selectively applied, invoking non-interference; others maintain that scrutiny is precisely the system's purpose. The 2022 OHCHR report on Xinjiang, the ongoing IIMM on Myanmar, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine illustrate both the reach and the limits of investigative mechanisms. GA Resolution 76/300 (2022) recognized the right to a healthy environment, and the 2024 OHCHR work on AI is shaping debate on algorithmic accountability. Today, the Human Rights Council's agenda centers on accountability for ongoing conflicts, business and human rights (the draft binding treaty), digital rights and AI governance, and operationalizing the right to a healthy environment for climate-displaced populations.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Political Risk and Global Security (ICPRGS).

Recent reporting to ground your prep

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis 2026

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis

Delimitation Based on 2011 Census

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

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

Conflict Resolution

Media & Press Relations

Frequently asked questions

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International Conference on Political Risk and Global Security (ICPRGS)

Aug 29, 2026Auckland, New ZealandIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Political Risk in a Multipolar Era · Global Security and the Return of Great-Power Competition · Reforming Global Governance · International Relations in a Fragmenting Order · Law and Policy in Conflict Zones · Diplomacy and Peacebuilding Strategies · Societal Resilience to Compound Shocks · Human Rights Under Strain

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.

New Zealand

As the host nation, NZL is likely to emphasize multilateralism, international law, and regional stability in the Pacific, advocating for peaceful resolutions to global security challenges.

Role in topic

United States

The USA will likely focus on its role as a global security guarantor, emphasizing strategic alliances, counter-terrorism efforts, and managing great power competition.

Role in topic

China

CHN's perspective will likely center on its growing global influence, economic security, and the principle of non-interference in internal affairs, while advocating for a multipolar world order.

Role in topic

Russia

RUS will likely highlight its national security interests, regional influence, and critiques of perceived Western hegemony, advocating for a balance of power in international relations.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

Political Risk in a Multipolar Era

Key players

Global Security and the Return of Great-Power Competition

Key players

Reforming Global Governance

Key players

International Relations in a Fragmenting Order

Key players

Law and Policy in Conflict Zones

Key players

Diplomacy and Peacebuilding Strategies

Key players

Societal Resilience to Compound Shocks

Key players

Human Rights Under Strain

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Political Risk and Global Security (ICPRGS).

Recent reporting to ground your prep

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis 2026

West Bengal Voter Deletion Crisis

Delimitation Based on 2011 Census

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

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

Conflict Resolution

Media & Press Relations

New Zealand August 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

Free account

Save conferences, research any topic with AI, build position papers, and keep your daily prep streak — free.

Create free account

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Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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Frequently asked questions

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