Planetary Institutions

The Planetary Institutions project gathers practitioners and experts to consider the planetary form and scale for new political institutions designed to govern the unprecedented risks facing life on Earth that confound existing modes of global governance.

Humanity is at a pivotal juncture in its relationship to the planet, confronting new challenges and risks that are fundamentally different from traditional dilemmas of global interdependence and less amenable to conventional efforts by sovereign states to manage them. The advent of concept of “the planetary” is a function of the interplay of broad forces and trends—demographic, technological, economic, ecological, informational, and (geo)political—that have altered humanity’s relationship with Earth systems, as well as the scientific and technological advances that have made us indelibly aware of the changes we have wrought. These developments provide an opportunity to evaluate the failures and successes of international cooperation as it occurs today as well as to reimagine our governance of the planet, considering new institutional formations (and the legitimacy thereof) that might be possible and necessary to confront planetary challenges. This project intends to make use of this opportunity.