The institutions built at the end of the Second World War to manage great-power rivalry and foster international cooperation have been sidelined in our new might-makes-right world. Amid the resurgence of large-scale warfare, the UN Security Council faces a deepening legitimacy crisis and international law is increasingly contested. Tit for tat tariffs and export controls have replaced a rules-based international economy, and the free movement of essential commodities, especially fertilizers and fuel, has seized up at maritime choke points.
So what comes next? How does a world confronting existential problems such as forever wars, climate change, and unfettered AI cope without functional institutions? What are the prospects for a more equitable global settlement and how might it be organized? The Roberta Buffett Institute's yearlong event series will convene scholars, politicians, diplomats, policymakers, and NGO and industry leaders to consider the waning role of multilateral institutions in global affairs. We’ll reckon with the damage done by the collapse of the US-led, rules-based international order, as well as the problems embedded in that system.
Above all else, though, the series will treat the present moment as an occasion for genuine experimentation. What sorts of institutions might be fair and effective? How might institutions that have retained some legitimacy be rebuilt for this new era? What role might publics around the world play in bolstering international interdependence and supporting a new architecture for governance? Our speakers will offer fresh ideas about building multipolar institutions that will be up to the task of confronting our grave and widening global challenges.
Event Lineup
Please note additional events will be added throughout the academic year.
The Stories They Tried to Silence
Monday, October 5 from 4:00–5:15 p.m. in the McCormick Foundation Center Forum
Join the Medill School and Roberta Buffett Institute for a discussion with Laurent Richard, founder and executive director of Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit news organization that protects the work of threatened journalists and pursues the investigations of reporters who have been silenced, and Oscar-winner Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS's flagship investigative journalism documentary series. In conversation with Buffett Distinguished Practitioner in Residence Kathy Im, director of the MacArthur Foundation’s journalism and media program, Richard and Aronson-Rath will discuss the growing risks journalists face across the globe and their highly anticipated reporting collaboration, which includes over a dozen major media outlets, about US immigration and deportation policies and their impacts around the world. A reception will follow the program.
We Shall Outlast Them: Putin's Global Campaign to Defeat the West
Friday, October 9 from 12:30–1:45 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room
Join us for a Buffett Book Talk with Russia foreign policy analyst Hanna Notte, whose new book tells a story that has long been obscured: that the Kremlin is waging a war not only on Ukraine, but over global order. Blending critical analysis with reportage from over a dozen countries, Notte's We Shall Outlast Them takes readers on a panoramic journey through this new era of statecraft, with its successes and its failures. From the comedy of Russia’s antics at the United Nations (UN) to the melodrama of its outrageous nuclear threats, Notte renders an astonishing portrait of a newly outward-facing Russia.
Evasive Riches & the Fight against Extreme Inequality
Saturday, October 17 from 8:15 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. in Harris Hall's Leopold Room
As income and wealth inequality increase globally, billionaires around the world continue to consolidate wealth and power using increasingly sophisticated tactics, buttressed by a growing pool of legal and tax experts dubbed the "wealth defense industry." Join the Roberta Buffett Institute's Equality Development & Globalization Studies (EDGS) Program for a day of discussions with many of the leading experts on the frontlines of the fight to expose and legislate against wealth consolidation and tax avoidance. They will dive into the current state of inequality and the tactics that make tracking and taxing wealth difficult, as well as strategies most likely to succeed in this fight. They will also share insights into what we can all do to push back against the "wealth defense industry" and the oligarchs whom it protects.
Note the conference will kick off the evening prior with a screening of The Finance Curse.
2026 NSAIL Conference on AI & National Security
Thursday, October 22 from 8:15 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. in the Norris University Center Louis Room
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integral to national and global security strategies. How are researchers leveraging AI to help predict terrorist attacks and reshape terror group behavior? How could AI help diplomats and multilateral institutions achieve more effective outcomes in negotiations? How are new AI techniques helping to predict cyber-attacks before they occur and mitigate them in real time when they do?
Join us to hear leading experts in AI, cybersecurity and national security tackle these questions at the annual Conference on AI & National Security hosted by the Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL) and cosponsored by Rinn AI and University College Cork. Jointly housed at Northwestern University’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and McCormick School of Engineering, NSAIL conducts fundamental research in AI relevant to issues of cybersecurity and counterterrorism.
From Student to Stateswoman: Undergraduate Conversation with Lilith Verstrynge
Thursday, October 22 from 5:00–6:00 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room
Join us for a students-only conversation with Lilith Verstrynge, former member of Spain’s Congress of Deputies and Spain’s former Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda. By the age of 30, she had risen from student political organizer to parliamentarian, working to connect domestic policymaking with left-wing social movements and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. At the age of 31, she announced her retirement from politics and departure from Podemos, the political party she had dedicated her career to building.
Democratic Disillusionment | Buffett Conversation with Lilith Verstrynge
Friday, October 23 from 12:30–1:45 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room
In wide-ranging conversation with Iza Ding, Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, former Spanish parliamentarian Lilith Verstrynge will reflect on democratic disillusionment and populist insurgencies, examining how political movements respond when traditional institutions lose the confidence of citizens. Ding and Verstrynge will also explore why left populist movements do — or don’t — create viable political parties and consider the role of multilateral organizations such as the European Union amid a waning rules-based international order.
Where’s George Clooney Now? Sudan’s Invisible War
Tuesday, October 27 from 12:30–1:45 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room
Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Sudan and 2026–27 Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies, will share insights into why we paid attention to Darfur 20 years ago, why we need to pay attention to a much larger war sweeping Sudan and the region today, and the consequences if we fail to do so. In conversation wtih Sarah Deardorff Miller, Senior Fellow at Refugees International, Yett will examine the risks of allowing the world's largest humanitarian emergency to remain largely ignored.
Breathing Oxygen into a Failing World Order: Behind the Scenes in Global AI Diplomacy
Friday, October 30 from 12:30–1:45 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room
Denise Garcia, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Northeastern University in Boston and 2026–27 Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies, will share insights into how transnational political networks of scientists, civil society, and middle powers are assembling to move AI governance from principles to practice. The prevailing wisdom holds that the world is fragmenting and that an accelerating AI military race, great-power stalemate at the UN Security Council, and deep distrust of multilateral solutions have made cooperation on the technologies that will define this century all but impossible. Drawing on more than a decade of participant observation at AI summits and negotiations, she will argue that governance is not collapsing but rising in new forms.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Wednesday, February 10 from 12:30–1:45 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room
Join us for a Buffett Book Talk with Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (Penguin 2025), described by Fintan O’Toole in The New York Times as a “fiercely agonized new book about American and European responses to the devastation of Gaza. El Akkad is trying...to force American readers to think of Palestinian victims not as ‘them’ but as ‘us.’ If, in the novel, he is attempting to close the cognitive gap between America and the Middle East, in One Day he is raging against the widening of that gulf, the way, at least in official discourse, the immense suffering of civilians in Gaza since October 7 is kept at bay.” The book is the winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Buffett Symposium: The Geopolitics of Outer Space
Evening of Thursday, February 18 and all day Friday, February 19
Join the Roberta Buffett Institute and the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration & Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) for a symposium on the geopolitics of outer space. Many of us are familiar with the challenges facing humanity on Earth, but what is happening just above our atmosphere? How do issues of governance, global security, scientific innovation, and resource management apply in outer space? Our winter symposium convenes experts from law, science, industry, and politics to discuss problems and possibilities for humanity’s future in space.
Above the Law: The US and the International Criminal Court
Friday, March 5 from 12:30–1:45 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room | Note a Wildcard is required to attend this event
Daniel Krcmaric, Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Law, will discuss the tumultuous relationship between the US and the International Criminal Court (ICC), a tribunal designed to prosecute the perpetrators of atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Many hail the ICC as one of the international community’s crowning achievements, but the US has long viewed it as a dire threat. Krcmaric will discuss his new book Above the Law (Cambridge University Press 2026), which analyzes American opposition to the ICC and ultimately concludes that American fears of the Court are overblown.
Global Economics in the Age of Disruption: A Student-Led Buffett Symposium
All day on Friday, April 9 in the Buffett Reading Room
We have entered an age of profound disruption driven by geopolitical, environmental, and social forces. But beneath all of these forces lie urgent economic questions that will shape where we end up. What incentives can push governments, businesses, and individuals to protect the planet? What are the costs and tradeoffs of war, and who bears the brunt of them? And as war, climate change, and tech revolutions transform where and how people work, what will it take to protect labor rights and build fair migration policy? Join us for Global Economics in the Age of Disruption, a student-led Buffett Symposium, to explore these questions with leading thinkers from around the globe.
A New Era of Security Cooperation and Great Power Competition | Buffett Conversation with Alexandra Chinchilla and William Reno
Wednesday, April 21 from 12:30–1:45 p.m. in the Buffett Reading Room
Join us for a conversation with Alexandra Chinchilla, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University, and William Reno, Professor and Chair of Political Science at Northwestern University, about the ways uncertain domestic politics and great power competition have ushered in a new era for security cooperation. They will explore how security assistance has taken on new forms and how new states have emerged as experts in modern warfare, drawing comparisons across Ukraine, the Middle East, and Africa to track the shifts these relationships have undergone during the second Trump administration and share insights into the implications for the future of global security.
