The 2048 Commission

Today’s world – and tomorrow’s – is one of turmoil. This is the result of overlapping and intertwining threats and challenges: an unchecked climate crisis; pandemics; deep and growing inequalities between and within states; and the latest of the industrial revolutions, centred on artificial intelligence, that could turn everything upside down – even what it means to be “human” – a revolution that we do not seem to fully understand, much less control. Superpowers are competing for hegemony, at the cost of growing instability and increasing conflict.

This is an instability of force 10 on the scale of our human history.  It is generating unprecedented human rights violations and widespread anxiety. People the world over are divided, disillusioned, and increasingly exposed to disinformation. There is a growing mismatch between what publics expect and what governments can, or are willing to, deliver. 

In 1948, in the globally ruinous aftermath of world war, the world sought international cooperation founded on universal principles, norms and standards to lead us out of the abyss. It was an imperfect vision, which from the very first months of its existence, ignored the plight of 700,000 Palestinians violently displaced. It was a victor’s project which nevertheless gifted the world with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and unleashed a disruptive force far beyond the control of the powerful that had participated to its drafting, and far into the arms of those standing up against them.  

Today, once again, we face ruinous scenarios globally, including those potentially even greater in scale, complexity, and appalling consequence.  

How might we (re)assume collective responsibility, and global cooperation, commensurate with the possibilities for progress and disaster around and in front of us?

Our work is to build a grounded, united movement that transforms the very system that was supposed to protect us; global governance grounded in accountability and founded in our humanity. Global governance robust enough to defend our shared future and our planet.

To this end, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard established the 2048 Commission and has partnered with a new generation of civil society leaders to help achieve for the world of today and tomorrow what the authors of the UDHR helped achieve for the world of 1948.

© ILGA/2048 Commission

Led by Amnesty International, with civil society and academia, the 2048 Commission is realised through mini commissions, and a 2028 Assembly tasked with helping to bring global governance of human rights into 21^st Century relevance. 

It will advise on the transformations and innovations needed to design, operate, participate in, and resource a revitalized global governance system.

It will closely examine the implications of challenges that could not be foreseen in 1948 – such as those associated with climate collapse, digital and bio-technological transformations, hyper-concentrations of wealth under economic globalization and the persistence of historically rooted inequalities. 

Through a number of independent working groups and mini-commissions, the 2048 Commission will also advise on ways to advise on ways to expand global governance beyond states, by empowering civil society and identifying solutions that will also help drive global accountability to local levels, and actively engage the responsibilities and accountabilities of non-state actors.

The findings of each commission will inform the programme of a global citizens Assembly, to be held in 2028, and this will determine the path toward 2048.

© Jarek Godlewski/Amnesty International

The Commission’s mandate will evolve as its work unfolds; it will follow crucial and interrelated areas:

Working Group 1: Reforming the UN and reimagining global institutions

Working Group 2: Accountability mechanisms for a new world  

Working Group 3: Power, race and gender: addressing historical and contemporary injustices  

Working Group 4: Bringing non-state actors fully into the international accountability plane  

Working Group 5: Climate Justice and the Rights of Future Generations

Working Group 6: Digital Futures with Human Rights at its Core  

Working Group 7: Building power for health justice and scientific integrity  

Working Group 8: Building economic systems that work for the people and the planet