When does the Young Diplomats Forum London take place?

The forum is scheduled to be held over several days in the fall, specifically from the twenty-first to the twenty-fifth of September.

Where is the Young Diplomats Forum London located?

The forum is located in the city of London, GBR, offering an immersive experience in a global hub.

What is the format of the Young Diplomats Forum London?

The forum is structured as an in-person event, providing a direct and interactive learning environment in London.

Young Diplomats Forum London 2026

Name: Young Diplomats Forum London 2026
Start: 2026-09-21T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-09-25T00:00:00Z
Location: London

Sep 21–25, 2026London, United KingdomIn-person

Registration open

The Young Diplomats Forum in London is an international gathering designed for aspiring diplomats and young leaders. Held in the GBR, this event provides a platform for participants to engage with current global challenges and develop essential diplomatic skills. The forum emphasizes practical learning and networking within a diverse, international setting, fostering a deeper understanding of international relations and policy-making.

Committees & topics

Topics
Diplomacy in the 21st Century · Digital Diplomacy · Artificial Intelligence and Diplomacy · Trade and Diplomacy · Climate Change · Reform of the United Nations · The Emerging World Order · BRICS and the Future of the Global South

Why it matters

In an increasingly interconnected world, the need for skilled and globally-aware diplomats is paramount. This forum addresses this need by bringing together young minds from various backgrounds to discuss critical international issues. The event's focus on diplomacy and global affairs is particularly relevant given the complex geopolitical landscape, where effective communication and negotiation are vital for maintaining peace and fostering cooperation. By convening in a major global city, the forum also highlights the importance of urban centers as hubs for international dialogue and collaboration.

The forum's structure, which includes both theoretical discussions and practical exercises, is crucial for developing well-rounded future leaders. Participants gain insights into the intricacies of international policy, the dynamics of multilateral institutions, and the art of diplomatic engagement. This holistic approach ensures that attendees are not only informed about global challenges but are also equipped with the tools to address them effectively. The emphasis on networking further enhances its value, creating a community of young professionals who can support each other in their diplomatic careers.

How to prepare

Prospective attendees should approach the Young Diplomats Forum with a solid understanding of contemporary international relations. Familiarity with key global issues, such as climate change, economic disparities, and geopolitical tensions, will enable more meaningful participation in discussions and workshops. Reviewing materials on topics like "dynamic-analysis" and "what-is-stakeholder-mapping" can provide a foundational understanding of analytical frameworks relevant to diplomatic work.

To maximize the experience, participants should also consider developing their "engagement-strategies" and understanding "hidden-stakeholders" in international contexts. The forum offers an opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge in a practical setting, making preparation in these areas particularly beneficial. Engaging with the diverse perspectives of fellow participants and speakers will be a core component of the learning experience, requiring an open and adaptable mindset.

Country perspectives

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

United Kingdom

As the host nation, the GBR emphasizes its commitment to fostering international dialogue and developing future diplomatic talent.

Role in topic

The GBR provides the venue and often contributes to the intellectual framework of the forum, leveraging its historical diplomatic expertise and its role as a global financial and political center. Its institutions and experts frequently engage with participants, offering insights into multilateral diplomacy and foreign policy.

United States

The USA views such forums as crucial for cultivating a new generation of leaders capable of navigating complex global challenges and promoting international cooperation.

Role in topic

Participants from the USA often bring perspectives on global leadership, democratic values, and the role of international institutions. They engage in discussions on security, economic policy, and human rights, reflecting the USA's broad foreign policy interests.

China

CHN sees these platforms as opportunities to engage with young international professionals and share its vision for global governance and multilateralism.

Role in topic

Delegates from CHN contribute to discussions on economic development, global trade, and emerging power dynamics. Their participation offers insights into CHN's growing influence on the international stage and its approach to diplomacy.

Topics & background

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

Diplomacy in the 21st Century

Twenty-first century diplomacy has been shaped by the end of the unipolar moment that followed the Cold War and the gradual return of great-power competition. The post-1991 liberal order, anchored by U.S. primacy and a widening web of multilateral institutions, has been strained by the rise of China, Russia's revisionism culminating in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the assertiveness of middle powers such as India, Brazil, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Traditional bilateral statecraft now coexists with summit diplomacy (G7, G20, BRICS), minilateral security pacts (AUKUS, the Quad) and issue-based coalitions on climate, technology and trade. The practice of diplomacy itself has been transformed by 24-hour media, social platforms, and the entry of non-state actors — multinational corporations, NGOs, and city networks — into negotiations once reserved for foreign ministries. Crises such as COVID-19, the war in Gaza, and the Sahel coups have exposed both the resilience and the limits of the UN system, while sanctions, export controls and economic statecraft have become as central as classical security policy. Today diplomats operate in a more fragmented and contested environment where consensus at the UN Security Council is rare, the Global South demands greater voice, and the boundaries between domestic politics and foreign policy have blurred. The core question is whether existing institutions can adapt fast enough, or whether a more transactional, multipolar order is replacing rules-based multilateralism.

Key players

Digital Diplomacy

Digital diplomacy — sometimes called e-diplomacy or 'Diplomacy 2.0' — emerged in the early 2010s as foreign ministries adopted social media, data analytics, and digital public engagement. The U.S. State Department's '21st Century Statecraft' agenda under Secretary Clinton, the UK FCDO's digital strategy, and the EEAS's StratCom task forces marked an institutional shift, while the Arab Spring demonstrated how platforms could reshape both protest and statecraft. Embassies now routinely conduct consular outreach, public diplomacy and crisis communication online. The field has since expanded beyond communications to include cyber diplomacy, internet governance and tech regulation. Forums such as the ITU, ICANN, the UN Open-Ended Working Group on cybersecurity, and the 2024 Global Digital Compact have become arenas for contesting whether the internet remains a multi-stakeholder commons or fragments into competing national 'splinternets'. States increasingly appoint Tech Ambassadors — Denmark's TechPlomacy initiative being the prototype — to engage directly with Silicon Valley and Shenzhen. Key current disputes involve disinformation and foreign interference, data sovereignty, submarine cable security, and the governance of platforms whose user bases dwarf most states. The challenge for diplomats is reconciling open-internet principles with national security, content moderation and the geopolitics of the digital stack.

Key players

Artificial Intelligence and Diplomacy

Artificial intelligence has moved from a niche technical issue to a top-tier diplomatic concern in barely three years. The release of large language models in 2022-2023, the UK's Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit in November 2023, the Seoul and Paris follow-ups, the EU AI Act of 2024, and U.S. executive actions on AI have created a patchwork of governance initiatives. At the UN, the High-Level Advisory Body on AI reported in 2024, and the General Assembly adopted its first consensus resolution on AI the same year, while the 2024 Global Digital Compact placed AI governance squarely on the multilateral agenda. AI is reshaping diplomacy in two distinct ways. First, as a subject of negotiation: states are debating export controls on advanced chips, compute thresholds, autonomous weapons (the GGE on LAWS within the CCW), AI in nuclear command and control, and frontier model safety. Second, as a tool: ministries are piloting AI for translation, open-source intelligence, treaty analysis and scenario planning, raising concerns about bias, hallucination and accountability in statecraft. The central dispute pits proponents of a global, possibly IAEA-style regulatory body against those favouring lighter, sectoral or regional approaches. Underlying this is a U.S.-China technology race in which semiconductors, talent, and compute have become strategic assets, with middle powers seeking to avoid forced alignment.

Key players

Trade and Diplomacy

The post-1995 WTO consensus on rules-based, non-discriminatory trade has eroded markedly since the mid-2010s. The collapse of the Doha Round, the paralysis of the WTO Appellate Body since 2019, the U.S.-China tariff war begun in 2018, COVID-era supply-chain shocks, and the weaponisation of trade after Russia's invasion of Ukraine have all pushed states toward 'de-risking', friend-shoring and industrial policy. The U.S. CHIPS Act, the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and China's export controls on rare earths and gallium illustrate how trade has become an instrument of strategic competition. In parallel, regional and plurilateral arrangements have proliferated: CPTPP, RCEP, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and a growing pipeline of critical-minerals agreements. The WTO's 13th Ministerial Conference in 2024 made limited progress on fisheries and e-commerce but failed to restore dispute settlement, leaving members reliant on the interim MPIA arrangement. The central diplomatic challenge is reconciling legitimate concerns about resilience, climate and national security with the open-trade principles that drove decades of poverty reduction. Developing economies in particular worry that green subsidies and CBAM-style measures in the North amount to a new protectionism.

Key players

Climate Change

International climate diplomacy has evolved from the 1992 UN Framework Convention through the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which committed parties to hold warming well below 2°C and pursue 1.5°C through nationally determined contributions. The 2023 Global Stocktake at COP28 in Dubai concluded that the world is off-track and called, for the first time, for 'transitioning away from fossil fuels.' COP29 in Baku in 2024 agreed a New Collective Quantified Goal of at least USD 300 billion per year by 2035 for developing countries, a figure widely criticised as insufficient. The core disputes remain familiar: the balance between mitigation and adaptation; common but differentiated responsibilities between historical and current emitters; the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund agreed in principle at COP27 and launched at COP28; and the credibility of net-zero pledges given continued fossil-fuel expansion. Climate finance, carbon markets under Article 6, and the just transition for fossil-fuel-dependent economies dominate negotiations. With 2024 confirmed as the first calendar year above 1.5°C, attention is turning to the next round of NDCs due in 2025, to non-state climate action, and to the interaction between trade measures such as CBAM and developing-country industrialisation.

Key players

Reform of the United Nations

Calls to reform the UN are nearly as old as the organisation itself, but pressure has intensified since the early 2000s. The 2005 World Summit produced limited results — creating the Human Rights Council and Peacebuilding Commission — but left the Security Council unchanged. Secretary-General António Guterres's 'Our Common Agenda' (2021) and the Summit of the Future in September 2024 produced a Pact for the Future, a Global Digital Compact and a Declaration on Future Generations, signalling renewed appetite for institutional change. Security Council reform remains the most contested element. The G4 (Brazil, Germany, India, Japan) seek permanent seats; the African Union's Ezulwini Consensus demands two permanent African seats with veto; the Uniting for Consensus group (Italy, Pakistan, Mexico, others) opposes new permanent members. Veto use by P5 members during the wars in Ukraine, Syria and Gaza has revived debate over the 2022 'veto initiative' requiring the General Assembly to convene whenever a veto is cast. Beyond the Council, reform debates target the international financial architecture (the 'Bridgetown Initiative'), peacekeeping mandates, the appointment of the Secretary-General, and the funding crisis affecting the regular budget and specialised agencies.

Key players

The Emerging World Order

The international system is in a transitional phase often described as multipolar, post-American, or simply contested. The unipolar period following 1991 has given way to renewed great-power competition between the United States and China, an openly revisionist Russia, and a more assertive Global South unwilling to align reflexively with either Washington or Beijing. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the 2021 fall of Kabul, the Sahel coups, and the expansion of BRICS in 2024 have all been read as signals that the post-1945 liberal order is fraying. Competing visions are on the table. The U.S. and its allies frame the contest as one between democracies and autocracies and seek to revitalise alliances such as NATO, the G7, AUKUS and the Quad. China and Russia advocate a 'multipolar' order centred on sovereignty, non-interference and reform of Western-led financial institutions, articulated through the Global Development, Security and Civilisation initiatives. Middle powers — India, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, South Africa — pursue strategic autonomy, hedging across blocs. The central question for diplomats is whether the emerging order will retain meaningful universal rules or fragment into rival spheres of economic, technological and security influence.

Key players

BRICS and the Future of the Global South

BRICS originated as an investment-bank acronym (Goldman Sachs, 2001) before becoming a formal grouping in 2009 (Brazil, Russia, India, China) with South Africa joining in 2010. Its institutional milestones include the 2014 establishment of the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, both based in Shanghai, designed as partial alternatives to the World Bank and IMF. Successive summits have positioned the bloc as a voice for Global South interests on UN reform, development finance and a less dollar-centric financial system. The 2023 Johannesburg summit triggered the bloc's first major enlargement: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates formally joined in January 2024, with Saudi Arabia's status ambiguous and Indonesia admitted in early 2025. The 2024 Kazan summit, hosted by Russia, pushed discussion of alternative payment systems ('BRICS Pay') and de-dollarisation, though concrete steps remain modest. The 2025 Rio summit, chaired by Brazil, focused on multilateral reform, climate finance and AI governance. The bloc's internal diversity — democracies and autocracies, oil exporters and importers, regional rivals such as India and China, or Iran and the UAE — limits its cohesion. Yet BRICS remains the most visible institutional expression of Global South demands for a more representative international order.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for Young Diplomats Forum London 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Foreign Minister: Bahrain’s membership in UNSC (2026 – 2027) affirms its diplomatic leadership and global role in promoting peace and sustainable development

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

India Showcases Arms at Police Expo 2026

India, South Korea Forge Five-Year Plan

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Dynamic Analysis

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

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

Country dossier

United Kingdom September 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

Young Diplomats Forum London 2026

Sep 21–25, 2026London, United KingdomIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Diplomacy in the 21st Century · Digital Diplomacy · Artificial Intelligence and Diplomacy · Trade and Diplomacy · Climate Change · Reform of the United Nations · The Emerging World Order · BRICS and the Future of the Global South

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.

United Kingdom

As the host nation, the GBR emphasizes its commitment to fostering international dialogue and developing future diplomatic talent.

Role in topic

United States

The USA views such forums as crucial for cultivating a new generation of leaders capable of navigating complex global challenges and promoting international cooperation.

Role in topic

China

CHN sees these platforms as opportunities to engage with young international professionals and share its vision for global governance and multilateralism.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

Diplomacy in the 21st Century

Key players

Digital Diplomacy

Key players

Artificial Intelligence and Diplomacy

Key players

Trade and Diplomacy

Key players

Climate Change

Key players

Reform of the United Nations

Key players

The Emerging World Order

Key players

BRICS and the Future of the Global South

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for Young Diplomats Forum London 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Foreign Minister: Bahrain’s membership in UNSC (2026 – 2027) affirms its diplomatic leadership and global role in promoting peace and sustainable development

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

India Showcases Arms at Police Expo 2026

India, South Korea Forge Five-Year Plan

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Dynamic Analysis

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

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

Country dossier

United Kingdom September 2026

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

RUSI Latin American Security Conference 2026

Link India Strategic Dialogue on Bangladesh Elections 2026

UK Trade Policy Forum 2026

Colombia’s armed conflict in regional and global context: Peace prospects, Venezuela spill over, and geopolitics ahead of elections

Meeting on “Transatlantic Security Amid Geopolitical Fluctuations”

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Frequently asked questions