Abstract

As the United Nations marks its 80th anniversary, confidence in the existing multilateral system is fraying. Global crises now move faster than institutional response, the Security Council remains locked in a 1945 power structure, and a growing number of governments are openly hostile to multilateralism. At the same time, polling suggests that increasing numbers of people identify as global citizens, living with risks – climate breakdown, pandemics and AI – that no state can manage alone.

This talk explores the Global Citizens’ Assembly as an experiment in rebuilding legitimacy from below. Drawing on evidence from deliberative democracy, climate cooperation and pandemic governance, it asks whether citizens’ assemblies can move beyond consultation to become a new layer of global governance infrastructure, and how AI-assisted deliberation changes what is possible at scale.