Just Security 2020

The Stimson Center, in collaboration with governments, civil society groups, businesses, and international organizations, has initiated Just Security 2020 to advance the recommendations of the Commission on Global Security, Justice & Governance. Co-chaired by Madeleine Albright (former U.S. Secretary of State) and Ibrahim Gambari (former Foreign Minister of Nigeria and UN USG), the Commission released Confronting the Crisis of Global Governance, in 2015, at the Peace Palace in The Hague. Looking toward the 75th anniversary of the UN in 2020, it underscored the need for new tools to manage the world’s most pressing problems—from violent conflict and climate change to the “hyperconnected” global economy—and stressed the need to build justice as well as security. “Just Security” is not only a matter of fundamental fairness but a way to combat the alienation that increases receptivity to violent extremist thought. Emphasizing the intersection of security and justice in global governance, Just Security 2020 is establishing a broad-based international coalition to pursue key Commission recommendations and related global governance innovations. The project aims to achieve, by 2020, measurable progress toward the adoption and initial implementation of up to twenty major reform proposals. Just Security 2020 responds to the practical need and moral imperative to build a more capable UN system to better cope with new global challenges. It contends that effective global problem-solving requires both attention to serious deficits of justice as well as security, to create what we call “just security.” Through a diverse global multi-stakeholder network known as the Platform on Global Security, Justice & Governance Reform (building on the Albright-Gambari Commission), Just Security 2020 gives particular attention to initiating and influencing preparations for a Leaders Summit in September 2020 in New York on United Nations renewal, innovation, and reform.