Executive Summary
“Where justice and order are not restored, there can be no healing, leaving violence and hatred ticking like a bomb in the corner. … [We] must strengthen [our] commitment to the rule of law, not undermine it. These principles are part of our global moral and legal responsibility, not items from a menu we can choose only when it suits us.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate, Anti-Apartheid and Human Rights Activist, and Theologian1Tutu, Desmond, “In Africa, Seeking a License to Kill,” New York Times, October 11, 2013.
Under the banner of “Diplomacy, Dialogue, and Diversity,” the Doha Forum has promoted for more than two decades a spirited and open interchange of ideas to innovate and improve international policy-making that drives action-oriented networks. Through this Future of International Cooperation 2025 report, the Doha Forum, Stimson Center, and Global Institute for Strategic Research explore ways to maximize the generational opportunities provided by the convening of, and follow-through to, the September 2024 Summit of the Future, June-July 2025 Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, and November 2025 World Social Summit. For these global diplomatic gatherings to achieve their full potential, action-oriented networks of governments, civil society, religious leaders, the media, the business community, and international organizations — both global and regional — are necessary for success.
With this year’s thematic focus on “Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress,” the report gives special attention to how global and regional governance can best promote and safeguard justice in all its dimensions (political-judicial, socioeconomic, and environmental). Without bold and decisive action, acute injustices within and between countries risk undermining global stability and collective progress. A more just and sustainable future requires rethinking governance, protecting human rights, fostering inclusive societies, and leveraging innovation to bridge these divides, including through the Pact for the Future, Sevilla Commitment, and the anticipated Political Declaration from the respective above-noted series of UN summits.
Clear, foundational principles are essential for realizing the full potential of justice in action in global and regional governance. Applied to efforts to reform political-judicial institutions, fill socioeconomic justice gaps, and advance environmental justice in global governance, these principles include fairness, representation, accountability, and freedom. Within the domain of regional governance, where the report examines institutional, legal, policy, operational, and normative innovations across the three dimensions of justice, four closely related principles are emphasized: accessibility, inclusion and collaboration, local capacity development, and transparency.
With the goal of making global and regional governance more effective and inclusive in promoting and safeguarding justice for present and future generations worldwide, the report’s chief recommendations include:
Global Justice in Action
Expand the ICJ and ICC’s Jurisdiction through Treaty and Agreement Provisions
International law and justice are under growing strain amid rising geopolitical tensions, selective compliance, and the erosion of multilateral norms, underscoring the urgent need for renewed commitment and reform to deliver on effective legal solutions in global courts. While the further development and defense of international law has taken a back seat at recent UN summits, it remains a vital facet of ensuring justice and remedy for major global issues confronted by the international community. A solution is to designate the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Criminal Court as arbiters of future summit-related international treaties and agreements, strengthening enforcement by tying jurisdiction to agreements that states cannot reject without abandoning the treaty itself. The General Assembly should also (and the Secretary-General granted the same authority to) make greater use of ICJ Advisory Opinions to proactively clarify and develop international law.
Bolster Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights through UN Human Rights Council Innovations
Closing the socioeconomic justice gap requires implementing universal human rights with enforcement mechanisms that hold states and corporations accountable. The UN Human Rights Council has increasingly emphasized economic, social, and cultural rights (such as fair wages, education, and health), as well as highlighting issues like regressive taxation and illicit financial flows as structural injustices that impede their realization. Reforms to strengthen its promotion of these rights could include introducing a “compliance scorecard” in Universal Periodic Review sessions, adopting majority-voting for procedural decisions to prevent deadlock, linking human rights obligations to global fiscal governance through support for the UN Tax Convention now under negotiation, and more closely engaging the Council with regional and national human rights bodies to facilitate greater regional and domestic action.
Establish a United Nations Climate Change Council
The world continues to face the existential triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. While key agreements like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Climate Agreement guide global climate action, an effective coordinating body is still urgently needed to streamline, connect across all three pillars of the crisis, and enforce implementation and compliance. The newly proposed UN Climate Change Council could ensure high-level representation from influential countries and meaningful participation by other relevant stakeholders on fundamental climate issues, directly supporting implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement through, for instance, a “Just Transition Review and Response” tool for tracking and recommending corrective actions to help countries deliver better on their Nationally Determined Contributions, National Adaptation Plans, and Global Stocktake.
Regional Justice in Action
Prioritize Issue-Specific Judicial Competencies and Training for Regional Human Rights Courts
Regional human rights courts play a critical role in advancing political and judicial justice by providing an additional layer of accountability and adjudication tools, especially when domestic institutions are weak, biased, or compromised. At the same time, strengthening their judicial competencies through issue-based training and continuous education on diverse topics, such as inequality, cybercrime, labor rights, discrimination in healthcare and education, and environmental justice, can improve the capacity of regional courts to deliver fair and effective rulings. Specialized human rights bodies and officials would provide deeper expertise, promote more consistent jurisprudence, and expedite case resolution — ultimately strengthening access to justice.
Promote Pooled Regional Investment Funds through Regional Development Banks
Persistent debt burdens and limited access to affordable finance remain major structural obstacles to achieving sustainable development in many developing countries. The creation of pooled regional investment funds through Regional Development Banks can promote investment in underfunded areas such as the informal economy, localized agricultural chains, and social services. Unlike traditional loans or grants, these funds offer equity investment to social enterprises, cooperatives, and communities supporting women-led informal cooperatives, Indigenous peoples, and youth-led green startups. Taking pooled regional investment funds to greater scale would enable fairer concessional financing, more responsive development cooperation (including through new social metrics like gender pay equity), and inclusion through greater community ownership.
Strengthen Compliance Mechanisms in Regional Environmental Agreements
Ensuring compliance remains a critical challenge to making regional environmental agreements effective and resilient in tackling the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. To facilitate greater accountability in their implementation, all regional environmental agreements should adopt enforceable compliance mechanisms. Specifically, this requires empowering regional compliance bodies to issue non-compliance findings, ensure public transparency, and recommend corrective actions. Additionally, linking treaty implementation to greater market access and climate finance eligibility would provide stronger incentives for compliance.
From the SOTF and FfD4 to the World Social Summit: Fighting Injustice Worldwide
Building on the Summit of the Future (which addressed global governance gaps in the UN’s core pillars of sustainable development, peace and security, and human rights) and the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (which tackled SDGs financing gaps identified by the Summit of the Future), this November’s World Social Summit will advance efforts to eradicate poverty, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, and promote social integration. In championing the fight against injustice in all its dimensions, the three summits manifest various “win-win” linkages; in many ways, their respective success depends on the pursuit of deep and varied connections between them. Together, they are poised to take forward the Pact for the Future, Sevilla Commitment, Political Declaration of the World Social Summit, and many of the wider set of themes covered at this year’s Doha Forum, including in the areas of geopolitics, economic development, emerging technologies, cultural diplomacy, and security.
Several of the innovations for promoting and safeguarding justice through global and regional governance introduced in this report offer novel entry points for deepening the multiple, mutually reinforcing actions agenda of the three successive summits culminating, in November 2025, in Doha. Reducing high, avoidable levels of injustice (and associated levels of inequality and underdevelopment) requires political and moral courage and vision, not only from national government and international organization leaders, but from their partners across civil society and in the business community. By placing a spotlight on both the global and regional collective action needed to bridge and overcome the stark justice gap found today within and between many countries, a more just — as well as safer, more prosperous, and sustainable — future for all can be realized.
Notes
- 1Tutu, Desmond, “In Africa, Seeking a License to Kill,” New York Times, October 11, 2013.
