Breathing Oxygen into a Failing World Order: Behind the Scenes in Global AI Diplomacy | Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor Lecture by Denise Garcia

Join the Roberta Buffett International Studies Program and Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs for a lecture by Denise Garcia, 2026–27 Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies, on how transnational political networks of scientists, civil society, and middle powers are assembling to move AI governance from principles to practice. After her short lecture, Professor Ian Hurd will moderate discussion and audience Q&A. 

Doors will open at 12:00 p.m., and lunch will begin at 12:15 p.m.  

Please note that 720 University Place is not an ADA-accessible space. Increasing physical access to buildings and facilities is a goal of the University, but not all buildings and venues have been updated. 

About the event 

The prevailing wisdom holds that the world is fragmenting and that an accelerating AI military race, great-power stalemate at the United Nations (UN) Security Council, and deep distrust of multilateral solutions have made cooperation on the technologies that will define this century all but impossible. Professor Garcia will take the audience behind the scenes of global diplomacy to reveal a more nuanced story. Drawing on more than a decade of participant observation at AI summits and negotiations as a Global Commissioner on the Responsible Use of AI in the Military Domain (The Hague, 2023–2026) and as a member of the International Panel for the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons (Berlin, 2017–2022), she shows that governance is not collapsing but rising in new forms. From the Berlin panel, which advised the UN's effort in Geneva to negotiate a new treaty on autonomous weapons — a process she has observed since 2014 — to the summits where AI governance is now being written, Garcia has watched these rules take shape from the inside. Where treaties stall and leaders hesitate, transnational political networks of scientists and civil society are assembling to move AI governance from principles to practice. 

While visiting these diplomatic capitals — including Geneva, New York, Seoul, Abu Dhabi, Cape Town, and Paris — she has also watched middle powers breathe new oxygen into that order, their coalitions supplying energy and initiative precisely where the superpowers withhold cooperation. Garcia will trace three movements she has followed and named: a scientist-led movement for Beneficial & Safe AI, a multistakeholder movement for Ethical & Principled AI, and an UN-anchored movement for AI for Good & for Humanity. Across all three, she identifies a striking pattern: grassroots initiatives by those closest to the technology consistently precede and catalyze governmental action. Her account is optimistic but also sobering. The military race continues, the gap between principles and action is real, and competition may yet outpace cooperation. But by reframing AI from a strategic asset into a common good, these networks offer the clearest evidence yet that the international order is being remade — and a firsthand look at who is doing the remaking. 

About the speakers 

Denise Garcia is a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Northeastern University in Boston and a founding faculty member of its Experiential Robotics Institute. Garcia was appointed to the Global Commission on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military. Before joining Northeastern, she worked for three years at the World Peace Foundation, part of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. She is currently a research member of the Institute for Economics & Peace in Sydney, Australia. She is a former member of the International Panel for the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons (Berlin, 2017–2022), the Research Board of the Toda Peace Institute (Tokyo, 2020–2023), and the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous & Intelligent Systems (New York City). She is also a former advisor to the Global Challenges Foundation (Stockholm). She was a funded Nobel Peace Institute Fellow in 2017 (Oslo). Her latest book is The AI Military Race: Common Good Governance in the Age of AI (Oxford University Press, 2024), in which she examines the complexities entailed in creating a global framework to govern the military use of AI by proposing inclusive and humane ways to forge cooperation.  

Ian Hurd is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Roberta Buffett International Studies Program at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. He was founding director of the Weinberg College Center for Global Studies. His latest book is How to Do Things with International Law, which looks at the political uses of international law in American foreign policy. He is the author of a leading textbook for students of international organizations and global governance, International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice (fifth edition, 2024). His earlier book on the power of legitimacy and international authority in the UN,  After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the UN Security Council, won the International Studies Association’s Chadwick Alger Prize and the Policy Sciences Association's Myres McDougal Award. His current research is on the history of the idea of international order.