Where is the STATE OF SECURITY 2026 conference being held?

The STATE OF SECURITY 2026 conference is scheduled to take place in the city of Berlin, DEU.

What is the primary focus of the STATE OF SECURITY 2026 conference?

The conference's primary focus is on corporate protection in the age of AI, addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence in safeguarding businesses.

What is the format of the STATE OF SECURITY 2026 event?

The event is a conference, providing a forum for discussions and insights into corporate security and AI.

STATE OF SECURITY 2026

Name: STATE OF SECURITY 2026
Start: 2026-06-03T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-06-03T00:00:00Z
Location: Berlin

Jun 3, 2026Berlin, GermanyIn-person

Registration open

The STATE OF SECURITY 2026 conference, held in Berlin, DEU, is a significant gathering focused on the critical aspects of corporate protection within the context of artificial intelligence. This event brings together experts and professionals to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in safeguarding corporate assets and operations. It serves as a platform for in-depth analysis and strategic planning concerning the future of security in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Committees & topics

Security Council
United Nations Security Council: Contemporary Threats to International Peace
Historical Security Council 1956
Historical Security Council, 1956: Suez and Hungary
General Assembly Plenary
General Assembly Plenary: Multilateralism and the UN at 80
First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)
First Committee: Disarmament and International Security
Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
Second Committee: Economic and Financial Affairs
Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural)
Third Committee: Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs
Sixth Committee (Legal)
Sixth Committee: Legal Affairs
United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)
United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)

Why it matters

In an era where technological advancements, particularly in artificial intelligence, are rapidly reshaping global industries, the security landscape for corporations is undergoing a profound transformation. The STATE OF SECURITY 2026 directly addresses this paradigm shift by focusing on corporate protection in the age of AI. This is crucial because the integration of AI introduces new vulnerabilities and sophisticated threats, demanding innovative and adaptive security measures.

The discussions and insights generated at this conference are vital for businesses and security professionals worldwide. They offer a forward-looking perspective on how to anticipate, mitigate, and respond to emerging security challenges. By concentrating on the practical applications and strategic implications of AI in corporate security, the event provides a necessary forum for developing robust defenses against evolving cyber and physical threats. The outcomes of such discussions can influence industry best practices and inform future policy developments in corporate security.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the themes presented at STATE OF SECURITY 2026, participants should consider a comprehensive review of current trends in artificial intelligence and its intersection with corporate security. Understanding the fundamental principles of AI, machine learning, and their deployment in various business sectors will be beneficial. Additionally, familiarity with common corporate security frameworks and the specific challenges posed by digital transformation will enhance one's ability to contribute meaningfully to the discussions.

Preparing for this event also involves considering the broader geopolitical and economic contexts that influence corporate security. While the focus is on AI, the implications of international relations and regional stability, particularly in Europe, can significantly impact corporate vulnerabilities and strategic responses. Therefore, a holistic understanding of both technological and contextual factors is key to maximizing participation and deriving actionable insights from the conference.

Country perspectives

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

Germany

As the host nation, DEU is deeply invested in fostering discussions around advanced security measures, particularly in the context of AI's impact on corporate protection.

Role in topic

DEU, as a leading economic power in Europe, has a significant interest in ensuring robust corporate security frameworks. Hosting STATE OF SECURITY 2026 in Berlin underscores its commitment to addressing cutting-edge security challenges and promoting international collaboration on these issues. The nation's industrial base and technological advancements make it a key player in developing and implementing AI-driven security solutions.

United States

The USA maintains a strong interest in AI-driven corporate security, given its extensive technological sector and global corporate presence.

Role in topic

The USA is a global leader in AI development and corporate innovation. Its corporations face sophisticated security threats, making discussions on AI's role in corporate protection highly relevant. Participation from US entities would likely focus on sharing best practices, exploring new technologies, and understanding international regulatory landscapes related to AI and security.

China

CHN's rapid advancements in AI and its significant industrial footprint mean it has a vested interest in exploring corporate protection strategies.

Role in topic

CHN's substantial investments in AI research and development, coupled with its vast industrial and technological sectors, position it as a critical stakeholder in corporate security discussions. Its perspective would likely highlight the integration of AI into national security strategies and its implications for corporate data protection and infrastructure.

Topics & background

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

United Nations Security Council: Contemporary Threats to International Peace

The Security Council was established in 1945 under Chapter V of the UN Charter as the organ with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Its five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) hold veto power, a structural feature that has shaped — and frequently paralyzed — Council action from the Cold War through the post-2022 era. The Council's binding powers under Chapters VI and VII, including sanctions regimes and the authorization of force, remain its most consequential tools, yet their application is increasingly contested as great-power rivalry resurges. Today's agenda is dominated by overlapping crises. The war in Ukraine, ongoing since Russia's February 2022 invasion, has exposed the limits of P5 cooperation. The Israel–Hamas war that erupted in October 2023 and the catastrophic civil war in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces — which began in April 2023 and has produced the world's largest displacement crisis — both test the Council's capacity for humanitarian action. Parallel debates over cyber norms, drawing on the Open-Ended Working Group on ICTs, are pushing the Council to confront threats to critical infrastructure that fall outside its traditional kinetic frame. Reform pressure is rising in tandem. The 2022 'veto initiative' (Resolution 76/262) requires the General Assembly to debate any veto cast, and African states continue to press the Ezulwini Consensus for permanent African representation. The Council enters this session under intense scrutiny over both its substantive decisions and its legitimacy.

Key players

Historical Security Council 1956

Historical Security Council, 1956: Suez and Hungary

The year 1956 was one of the most consequential in the Security Council's early history, producing twin crises that simultaneously tested the credibility of the United Nations and the cohesion of the Western alliance. In July, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, a Franco-British enterprise, in response to the withdrawal of Western financing for the Aswan High Dam. Following secret coordination at Sèvres, Israel invaded the Sinai on 29 October, and the United Kingdom and France launched military operations against Egypt on 31 October under the pretext of separating the combatants and securing the canal. The Council was immediately seized of the matter but blocked by British and French vetoes. Invoking the 1950 'Uniting for Peace' procedure, the matter was transferred to an emergency special session of the General Assembly, which authorized the first United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF I) — a landmark in peacekeeping. Pressure from the United States, particularly through the Eisenhower administration's financial leverage on sterling, forced an Anglo-French withdrawal by December. Simultaneously, Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian Revolution beginning 4 November, installing the Kádár government. The Council debated the intervention but was paralyzed by the Soviet veto; Uniting for Peace was again invoked, though no enforcement followed. The dual crises laid bare both the promise and the limits of collective security: the UN could innovate around P5 deadlock, but only where great-power interests permitted.

Key players

General Assembly Plenary: Multilateralism and the UN at 80

The General Assembly Plenary is the only UN organ in which all 193 member states sit on the basis of sovereign equality, each with a single vote. Established under Chapter IV of the Charter, the Plenary handles questions of overarching importance — peace and security matters not before the Security Council, budgetary approval, the election of non-permanent Council members, and the admission of new states. Although its resolutions are generally non-binding, they carry significant normative weight and have shaped international law on decolonization, human rights, and, more recently, the right to a healthy environment (Resolution 76/300, 2022). The Plenary has periodically asserted itself when the Security Council is deadlocked, most famously through the 1950 'Uniting for Peace' resolution and, more recently, through emergency special sessions on Ukraine and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 2022 veto initiative obliges the Assembly to convene whenever a P5 veto is cast, deepening its scrutiny role. The Pact for the Future, adopted in September 2024, set out commitments on Security Council reform, sustainable development financing, and the governance of artificial intelligence. As the United Nations approaches its 80th anniversary, the Plenary is the central venue for debate over the organization's relevance, the credibility of multilateralism amid renewed great-power competition, and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals whose 2030 deadline is now within sight but well off track.

Key players

First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)

First Committee: Disarmament and International Security

The First Committee of the General Assembly addresses disarmament, global challenges, and threats to peace that affect the international community. Its modern agenda has been shaped by the erosion of the Cold War-era arms control architecture: the collapse of the INF Treaty in 2019, Russia's 2023 suspension of New START participation, and continued stagnation in the Conference on Disarmament have left the nuclear order under unprecedented strain. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's 2022 Review Conference ended without a consensus document, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in 2021, has yet to be joined by any nuclear-armed state. The committee's contemporary work increasingly centers on emerging technologies. Negotiations within the Group of Governmental Experts and the new Open-Ended Working Group on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems have intensified since 2023, with sharp divisions over whether a legally binding instrument should require 'meaningful human control.' In outer space, anti-satellite tests by Russia (2021), China, India, and the United States, combined with the proliferation of dual-use commercial constellations, have revived calls for negotiation under the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) agenda, even as the 1967 Outer Space Treaty shows its age. Cyber norms, regulated through successive OEWG cycles on ICTs, round out an agenda defined less by classical disarmament than by the governance of dual-use technologies whose military and civilian applications are increasingly inseparable.

Key players

Second Committee (Economic and Financial)

Second Committee: Economic and Financial Affairs

The Second Committee handles the General Assembly's work on macroeconomic policy, sustainable development, financing for development, and the global economic system. Its modern agenda was reshaped by the 2002 Monterrey Consensus, the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The compounding shocks of COVID-19, the inflation surge following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and a sharp rise in sovereign borrowing costs have left low- and middle-income countries facing what UNCTAD and the IMF describe as a development emergency. Sovereign debt is the committee's most charged issue. The G20 Common Framework, launched in 2020, has delivered restructurings too slowly for distressed debtors such as Zambia, Ghana, and Sri Lanka, and African and Latin American states are increasingly pressing for a UN-led sovereign debt mechanism. In parallel, negotiations for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville in 2025 set the stage for new commitments on tax cooperation — including the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation mandated by Resolution 78/230 — concessional finance, and climate-related lending. The Global Digital Compact, adopted as part of the 2024 Pact for the Future, has added digital public infrastructure and AI governance to the committee's economic agenda, intersecting with longstanding work on technology transfer and the digital divide.

Key players

Sixth Committee (Legal)

Sixth Committee: Legal Affairs

The Sixth Committee is the primary forum within the General Assembly for the consideration of legal questions. It oversees the work of the International Law Commission (ILC), debates draft articles on state responsibility and other foundational topics, and serves as the negotiating venue for treaties on issues ranging from terrorism to diplomatic protection. Its consensus-driven culture and technical character distinguish it from the more politically charged Main Committees, though that culture has come under strain on questions where law and politics intersect closely. A defining contemporary file is the draft convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, based on the ILC's 2019 draft articles. After years of procedural delay, the committee in 2024 agreed on a roadmap toward negotiations, marking the most significant codification effort in international criminal law since the Rome Statute. Other live agenda items include the scope and application of universal jurisdiction, the rule of law at the national and international levels, measures to eliminate international terrorism — where a comprehensive convention remains blocked by disagreement over the definition of terrorism — and emerging questions on the criminal accountability of UN officials and experts on mission. The committee is also increasingly seized of how international law applies to cyberspace, autonomous systems, and sea-level rise, the last of which is the subject of an active ILC study group examining statehood and maritime boundaries for affected states.

Key players

United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)

The United Nations Environment Assembly was established in 2012 by the Rio+20 outcome document and replaced the Governing Council of UNEP as the world's highest-level decision-making body on the environment. Universal in membership, UNEA convenes biennially in Nairobi and sets the global environmental agenda, providing policy guidance to UNEP and shaping the broader UN system's environmental work. Its mandate spans the triple planetary crisis identified by the Secretary-General: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. UNEA's most consequential recent decision was Resolution 5/14, adopted in March 2022, which launched the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on a legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution. After five INC rounds — most recently INC-5 in Busan in late 2024 — negotiations remain divided between a 'high-ambition coalition' seeking caps on primary plastic polymer production and major petrochemical producers preferring a downstream waste-management focus. UNEA also oversees implementation of the Minamata Convention on mercury, drives action on the Global Framework on Chemicals adopted in 2023, and provides a forum for follow-up to the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. UNEA-7 in 2025 will revisit progress on plastics, sustainable nitrogen management, and the environmental dimensions of conflict and peacebuilding, sustaining its role as the principal venue where environmental science and multilateral diplomacy intersect.

Key players

Resources

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Germany June 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

STATE OF SECURITY 2026

Jun 3, 2026Berlin, GermanyIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Security Council
United Nations Security Council: Contemporary Threats to International Peace
Historical Security Council 1956
Historical Security Council, 1956: Suez and Hungary
General Assembly Plenary
General Assembly Plenary: Multilateralism and the UN at 80
First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)
First Committee: Disarmament and International Security
Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
Second Committee: Economic and Financial Affairs
Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural)
Third Committee: Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs
Sixth Committee (Legal)
Sixth Committee: Legal Affairs
United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)
United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

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

Germany

As the host nation, DEU is deeply invested in fostering discussions around advanced security measures, particularly in the context of AI's impact on corporate protection.

Role in topic

United States

The USA maintains a strong interest in AI-driven corporate security, given its extensive technological sector and global corporate presence.

Role in topic

China

CHN's rapid advancements in AI and its significant industrial footprint mean it has a vested interest in exploring corporate protection strategies.

Role in topic