Where will the ISA-SAWP Colombo 2026 conference be held?

The conference will be held in Colombo, LKA.

What is the format of the ISA-SAWP Colombo 2026 event?

The event is a conference, providing a platform for academic and professional exchange.

ISA‑SAWP Colombo 2026

Name: ISA‑SAWP Colombo 2026
Start: 2026-08-06 00:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-08-08 00:00:00+00:00
Location: Colombo

Aug 6–8, 2026Colombo, Sri LankaIn-person

ConcludedRegistration closed

The ISA-SAWP Colombo 2026 conference, hosted in Colombo, LKA, serves as a significant regional gathering for scholars and practitioners. This event provides a platform for in-depth discussions and collaborative research on various topics relevant to the region and its global interactions. The conference aims to foster intellectual exchange and advance understanding of complex issues.

Committees & topics

Topics
South Asia in a Changing International Order · Technological Transformation and Global Order · Weaponized Interdependence · Changes in Global Power Distribution · Evolving Multilateral Institutions · International Norms and Governance · South Asia's Security Environment · Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in South Asia

Why it matters

The conference's location in Colombo, LKA, highlights the growing importance of the region in international discourse. Such gatherings are crucial for facilitating dialogue among experts, which can lead to new perspectives and potential solutions for regional and global challenges. By bringing together diverse viewpoints, the event contributes to a more nuanced understanding of international affairs.

Events of this nature are vital for the academic community, offering opportunities for scholars to present their research, engage with peers, and build networks. The insights generated from these discussions can inform policy-making and public understanding, thereby influencing the trajectory of international relations. The focus on regional dynamics within a global context underscores the interconnectedness of contemporary issues.

How to prepare

Delegates preparing for this conference should consider the broader geopolitical landscape affecting the region. Understanding the historical context and current events in countries like LKA, IND, and PAK will be beneficial. Familiarity with the roles of major global powers such as CHN, USA, and RUS in the region can also provide valuable context.

For those presenting research, it is advisable to frame topics within the context of regional specificities while also highlighting their broader international relevance. Engaging with concepts such as the Power-Interest Grid and Hidden Stakeholders can help in analyzing complex relationships. Considering Engagement Strategies and conducting a Stakeholder Mapping Workshop in advance can also enhance the depth of analysis. Furthermore, an understanding of Dynamic Analysis will be useful for interpreting evolving regional dynamics.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Sri Lanka

Host nation, keen to promote regional dialogue and showcase its role in international relations.

Role in topic

As the host country, LKA provides the geographical and cultural context for the discussions, offering a unique perspective on regional challenges and opportunities. Its strategic location makes it a significant player in maritime trade and regional connectivity.

India

Major regional power with significant influence on South Asian dynamics.

Role in topic

IND's economic and political weight heavily impacts the region. Its policies and relationships with neighboring countries are often central to discussions on regional stability and development.

Pakistan

Key regional actor with complex geopolitical relationships.

Role in topic

PAK's strategic importance and its relationships with other regional and global powers contribute significantly to the geopolitical landscape of South Asia, making its perspective crucial for comprehensive regional analysis.

China

Growing economic and strategic presence in the region.

Role in topic

CHN's increasing investments and strategic partnerships across the region, including in LKA, influence economic development, infrastructure, and geopolitical alignments, making its role a frequent point of discussion.

United States

Established global power with strategic interests in regional stability and security.

Role in topic

The USA maintains a significant diplomatic and strategic presence, often engaging in partnerships and initiatives aimed at promoting stability, counter-terrorism, and economic development, which are key themes in regional discourse.

Topics & background

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

South Asia in a Changing International Order

South Asia sits at the intersection of several shifting global currents: the deepening US-China strategic rivalry, the consolidation of an 'Indo-Pacific' framing of regional security, and the gradual erosion of the post-1945 liberal order. Historically, the region's external orientation was shaped by the Cold War's non-alignment debates, India's 1971 treaty with the USSR, Pakistan's CENTO/SEATO alignments, and the post-1991 opening of South Asian economies to globalization. The 2008 financial crisis, the 2014 Crimea annexation, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine have each accelerated questioning of Western-led institutions and opened space for plurilateral alternatives such as BRICS+, the SCO, and the Quad. For South Asian states, the changing order is both an opportunity and a constraint. India has pursued 'multi-alignment,' deepening ties with the United States and Europe while preserving defense links with Russia and energy ties with Gulf producers. Smaller states — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Maldives — have navigated competing offers of infrastructure finance, debt restructuring, and security partnership from China, India, Japan, and Western lenders. The 2022 Sri Lankan default and IMF program crystallized debates over debt sustainability and great-power leverage. Today the core question is whether South Asia will function as a coherent regional actor — SAARC has been effectively dormant since 2016 — or as a contested space in which extra-regional powers set the terms. Delegates must weigh how regional states preserve strategic autonomy while engaging an order in which norms, capital flows, and security architectures are all being renegotiated.

Key players

Technological Transformation and Global Order

The current wave of technological change — advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and ubiquitous digital platforms — is reshaping both the material basis of power and the rules under which states interact. Since the 2018 US restrictions on ZTE and Huawei, and the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act and accompanying export controls, technology policy has moved decisively from a domain of commercial regulation into the heart of national security. The EU's AI Act (2024), China's generative AI rules, and ongoing UN processes including the Global Digital Compact (2024) reflect competing attempts to set the normative architecture. For South Asia, technological transformation is double-edged. India has emerged as a major site of digital public infrastructure (Aadhaar, UPI), a growing semiconductor assembly base, and a hub for AI talent, while also confronting questions of data sovereignty, platform regulation, and surveillance. Smaller economies face widening gaps in compute, connectivity, and skills, and risk being locked into particular technology stacks through infrastructure deals. Disinformation, deepfakes, and platform-driven polarization have already affected elections across the region. The debate now centers on whether emerging technologies will be governed through inclusive multilateral frameworks, fragmented techno-blocs, or a patchwork of national rules. Delegates should consider export controls, AI safety, cross-border data flows, and the developmental implications of restricted access to frontier technology.

Key players

Weaponized Interdependence

The concept of 'weaponized interdependence,' formalized by Farrell and Newman in 2019, describes how states leverage chokepoints in global networks — finance, energy, semiconductors, undersea cables, shipping — to coerce others. The post-1991 assumption that economic integration would depoliticize trade has been steadily reversed: US secondary sanctions on Iran, the 2022 freezing of Russian central bank reserves, China's export restrictions on gallium and germanium, and the use of SWIFT exclusion have all demonstrated how interdependence can be turned into leverage. South Asia is particularly exposed. The region depends on dollar-denominated trade finance, Gulf hydrocarbons, fertilizer imports, and remittance flows — each a potential pressure point. Sri Lanka's 2022 fuel and forex crisis, Pakistan's recurrent balance-of-payments distress, and India's careful management of discounted Russian crude purchases all illustrate the tightrope regional economies walk. At the same time, India's own use of export bans on rice and wheat shows that weaponization is not the preserve of great powers. The contemporary debate concerns how to build resilience — through diversification, friend-shoring, alternative payment systems (CIPS, INSTEX, BRICS clearing), and stockpiling — without accelerating fragmentation of the global economy. Delegates must address the legitimacy of sanctions, the rights of third parties caught by extraterritorial measures, and whether new norms are needed for the use of economic coercion.

Key players

Changes in Global Power Distribution

The international distribution of power is undergoing its most significant reordering since the end of the Cold War. The US remains the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and military spender, but China's rise — its 2010 overtaking of Japan in nominal GDP and dominance of global manufacturing — has produced a recognized bipolar core within a broader multipolar system. India's economy surpassed the UK's in 2022 to become the world's fifth largest; Indonesia, Brazil, and the Gulf states are increasingly consequential. The 2024 BRICS expansion to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE signaled growing institutional weight for the Global South. Military power has likewise diffused. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the 2023 Gaza war, and conflicts in Sudan and the Sahel have revealed both the limits of Western deterrence and the durability of regional power vacuums. China's military modernization, India's growing defense budget, and Turkey's emergence as a drone exporter all illustrate the broadening base of usable hard power. Demographic shifts — Africa's growth, East Asia's aging — will reshape long-term economic and strategic potential. The core debate is whether the system is converging toward US-China bipolarity, fragmenting into regional orders, or settling into a genuinely multipolar arrangement in which middle powers exercise significant agency. For South Asian states, the answer shapes choices about alignment, institutional reform, and the cost of strategic autonomy.

Key players

Evolving Multilateral Institutions

The multilateral architecture built after 1945 — the UN, IMF, World Bank, GATT/WTO — is under simultaneous pressure from rising powers seeking greater representation, from incumbents skeptical of binding constraints, and from new challenges that cut across institutional mandates. The WTO Appellate Body has been paralyzed since 2019, UN Security Council reform has stalled despite the G4 and Ezulwini proposals, and IMF quota reform has lagged actual shifts in economic weight. In parallel, new bodies — the AIIB (2016), the New Development Bank, the African Continental Free Trade Area (2021), and the Global Digital Compact (2024) — have emerged. Reformist pressure is most visible in the Bridgetown Initiative on climate finance, the UN Pact for the Future (2024), and recurring G20 debates on debt restructuring under the Common Framework. The 2023 African Union accession to the G20, hosted by India's presidency, marked a notable institutional adjustment. Yet the gap between proposed reforms and the political will of veto-holders and major shareholders remains wide. The debate now is whether existing institutions can be reformed quickly enough to retain legitimacy, whether parallel institutions will substitute for or complement them, and how middle powers — including South Asian states — can shape outcomes. Delegates should consider UNSC composition, IFI governance, climate finance architecture, and the future of global trade rules.

Key players

International Norms and Governance

International norms — the shared expectations that guide state behavior — are increasingly contested across multiple domains: the use of force, human rights, sovereignty, cyber conduct, and climate responsibility. The post-Cold War expansion of norms such as the Responsibility to Protect (2005), international criminal accountability, and democratic governance has met sustained pushback. Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine challenged the prohibition on territorial aggression; the 2023-25 Gaza war strained interpretations of international humanitarian law and produced unprecedented ICJ and ICC proceedings; and debates over civilizational sovereignty have gained traction in Beijing, Moscow, and parts of the Global South. New governance frontiers — AI safety, cyber operations, lethal autonomous weapons, geoengineering, ocean and space resource exploitation — lack settled normative frameworks. Processes such as the UN Open-Ended Working Group on ICTs, the GGE on lethal autonomous weapons, the Global Digital Compact, and the BBNJ Treaty (2023) are attempting to fill gaps, often with deep disagreement on whether outcomes should be binding. The central question is whether norm-making can remain genuinely multilateral, or whether it will fracture into Western, Chinese, and other blocs with overlapping but distinct rule-sets. South Asian states, with their tradition of non-alignment and substantial peacekeeping contributions, have a particular stake in defending universalist frameworks while pressing for more equitable participation in norm creation.

Key players

South Asia's Security Environment

South Asia hosts one of the world's densest concentrations of strategic risk: three nuclear-armed states (India, Pakistan, China), unresolved territorial disputes, transnational militant networks, and a fragile post-2021 settlement in Afghanistan. The India-Pakistan relationship has been frozen since the 2019 Pulwama-Balakot crisis and the August 2019 revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir; cross-border ceasefire understandings reached in 2021 have held but without political dialogue. The India-China border has remained tense since the 2020 Galwan clash, with partial disengagement at several friction points announced in 2024 but unresolved boundary delimitation. Afghanistan under Taliban rule since August 2021 continues to pose challenges of terrorism (notably ISKP and TTP), narcotics, and humanitarian crisis, with significant spillover into Pakistan's tribal districts. Myanmar's civil war is generating refugee flows into Bangladesh, where over a million Rohingya remain in Cox's Bazar. Maritime security in the Indian Ocean, including Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping from 2023 and piracy resurgence off Somalia, has drawn deeper Indian and external naval engagement. The debate centers on crisis stability between nuclear neighbors, counter-terrorism cooperation in the absence of functioning regional institutions, and the management of maritime and grey-zone challenges. Delegates should weigh confidence-building, the role of extra-regional actors, and prospects for reviving SAARC-level or sub-regional frameworks.

Key players

Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in South Asia

Domestic political dynamics in South Asia decisively shape foreign policy in ways that often confound external expectations. India's consolidation under the BJP since 2014 has produced a more assertive foreign policy posture, including muscular border management, expanded diaspora engagement, and a sharper Hindu-nationalist domestic discourse with implications for relations with neighbors and Western partners. Pakistan's civil-military balance, the 2022 removal of Imran Khan, and the 2024 elections have shaped both economic policy choices and engagement with the IMF, China, and Gulf states. Bangladesh experienced a dramatic political rupture in August 2024 with the fall of the Awami League government and the formation of an interim administration under Muhammad Yunus, reshaping ties with India and opening space for renewed engagement with Pakistan and China. Sri Lanka's 2022 Aragalaya protests and the 2024 election of Anura Kumara Dissanayake on a reformist platform recalibrated relations with India and the IMF. The Maldives' 2023 election produced a government that emphasized 'India Out' rhetoric before adopting a more balanced posture. Nepal's recurrent coalition turnover continues to shape its hedging between India and China. The core question is how domestic legitimacy crises, electoral cycles, civil-military relations, and identity politics constrain or enable foreign policy choices. Delegates should examine how external partners adapt to political volatility and how regional states preserve continuity in core strategic relationships across changes of government.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for ISA‑SAWP Colombo 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Rahul Gandhi Defends Tamil Nadu's Autonomy

India's 131st Amendment Bill

India's Women's Quota Bill Fails

West Bengal 2026 Election

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

The Power-Interest Grid

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Multilateral Negotiation

Advanced Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

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

Sri Lanka August 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

ISA‑SAWP Colombo 2026

Aug 6–8, 2026Colombo, Sri LankaIn-person

ConcludedRegistration closed

Committees & topics

Topics
South Asia in a Changing International Order · Technological Transformation and Global Order · Weaponized Interdependence · Changes in Global Power Distribution · Evolving Multilateral Institutions · International Norms and Governance · South Asia's Security Environment · Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy in South Asia

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 5 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Sri Lanka

Host nation, keen to promote regional dialogue and showcase its role in international relations.

Role in topic

India

Major regional power with significant influence on South Asian dynamics.

Role in topic

IND's economic and political weight heavily impacts the region. Its policies and relationships with neighboring countries are often central to discussions on regional stability and development.

Pakistan

Key regional actor with complex geopolitical relationships.

Role in topic

China

Growing economic and strategic presence in the region.

Role in topic

United States

Established global power with strategic interests in regional stability and security.

Role in topic