The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, ⁠⁠⁠Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned⁠⁠⁠, organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism.

The final panel on Friday, April 4 focused on the challenges of implementing peace agreements and featured:

• Barney Afako, lawyer and member of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan

• Kate Fearon, founding member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition who participated in negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement

• Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine's former Minister of Foreign Affairs and co-founder of the Centre for National Resilience & Development

• Abiodun Williams, Professor of the Practice of International Politics at Tufts University and former Senior Vice-President of the Center for Conflict Management at USIP

• Moderated by Pontus Ohrstedt, Director of Support to Peace Processes at Folke Bernadotte Academy, the Swedish government agency for peace, security and development

⁠⁠⁠Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>⁠

The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, ⁠⁠Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned⁠⁠, organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism.

The penultimate panel on Friday, April 4 focused on actors in multilateral peacemaking and featured:

• William B. Taylor, Distinguished Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, former Vice President for Europe & Russia at the US Institute of Peace (USIP) and former US ambassador to Ukraine

• Shoaib Rahim, former Senior Advisor to Afghanistan's State Ministry for Peace

• Tor Wennesland, the UN's former Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process

• Moderated by Danielle Gilbert, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University

⁠⁠Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>⁠

The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, ⁠Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned⁠, organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism.

The second panel on Friday, April 4 focused on designing processes for negotiating peace and featured:

• Barney Afako, lawyer and member of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan

• Claire Hajaj, Executive Director of Inter Mediate

• Sergio Jaramillo, President of Fundación Acordemos and Colombia's former High Commissioner for Peace

• Moderator Daniel Krcmaric, Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University

⁠Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>⁠

The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned, organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism.

The initial panel on Friday, April 4 focused on conditions of possibility for negotiating peace and featured:

• Betty Bigombe, Uganda's Special Envoy to the peace process in South Sudan and ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

• Christopher R. Hill, five-time US ambassador, whose last post was as ambassador to Serbia from 2022–2025

• Tor Wennesland, the UN's former Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process

• Moderator Ian C. Kelly, Ambassador (ret.) in Residence at Northwestern University

Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>⁠

The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned, organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism.

Although peace negotiations are often greeted with relief, they also represent a fork in the road. A badly-crafted agreement may be worse than no agreement at all. Rushed peace deals store up trouble for the future, fueling more intense and widening conflicts.

This symposium examined the successes and failures of past processes, analyzed key principles and strategies, and discussed the roles of various actors in achieving lasting and implementable peace agreements. The opening plenary session included:

• Christopher R. Hill, five-time US ambassador, whose last post was as ambassador to Serbia from 2022–2025

• Kate Fearon, founding member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition who participated in negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement

• Sergio Jaramillo, President of Fundación Acordemos and Colombia's former High Commissioner for Peace

• Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine's former Minister of Foreign Affairs and co-founder of the Centre for National Resilience & Development

• Moderator Ravi Agrawal, Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy

Our 2025 spring Buffett Symposium on Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned, organized with Fundación Acordemos, brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades and draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism. This brief preview of the discussions is pulled from our short recap video of the two-day event.

Learn more about the symposium's speakers and program >>

Our 2025 winter Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics convened leading strategists, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the transformative opportunities and profound challenges that AI poses in geopolitics. The event was co-organized by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, ⁠Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL)⁠, and ⁠Insight Centre at University College Cork⁠.

The daylong program's final panel discussion focused on the role of international cooperation in advancing the development, regulation, and application of AI through shared expertise, collaborative research, and ethical governance. Through partnerships such as the 2023 US-EU Administrative Arrangement on Artificial Intelligence for the Public Good, scientific and technological cooperation can leverage AI to tackle grand challenges in healthcare, education, disaster management, and public service delivery. Through this agreement, the US and EU aim to share findings and resources with international partners, which is critical to efforts to bridge the digital divide.

Panelists included:

• Daniel Byman, Professor and Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and Director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Juha Heikkilä, Adviser for Artificial Intelligence, European Commission

• Romain Murenzi, Professor of Physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and former Rwandan Minister of Education, Science and Technology, and Information Communication Technologies

• Moderator V.S. Subrahmanian, Buffett Faculty Fellow and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, and Director of NSAIL

Key Takeaways

• Unequal access to broadband and electricity, prerequisites for leveraging AI effectively, is a significant barrier to entry for countries in the Global South. Murenzi noted that, during the AI boom in 2023, developing countries were rebuilding their economies and education infrastructure post-COVID-19. International cooperation, through funding programs and partnerships, is essential to ensure technologies are tailored to local contexts and don’t further exacerbate disparities.

• Expertise and innovation predominantly lie within private corporations, emphasizing the need for public-private partnerships and ethical oversight. The private sector possesses the resources, talent, and computational power necessary to drive innovation, placing them at the forefront of AI advancement. However, this concentration of expertise creates a dependency on private entities for progress, potentially sidelining public interests and societal goals.

• Effective collaboration between private companies, governments, and academia is necessary to create synergies and build local capacities, particularly in developing nations. Byman explained that university researchers play an important role in developing AI technologies and safety protocols that are beneficial to society but have less value commercially and thus are not likely to be pursued by the profit-driven private sector.

Read the symposium synthesis report >>

Our 2025 winter Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics convened leading strategists, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the transformative opportunities and profound challenges that AI poses in geopolitics. The event was co-organized by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, ⁠Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL)⁠, and ⁠Insight Centre at University College Cork⁠.

The daylong program's penultimate panel discussion focused on global economic impacts of AI. The economic disparities in AI adoption across regions and industries are influenced by factors such as regulatory environments, infrastructure readiness, and cultural attitudes toward risk. The panel discussed the barriers to entry of developing and deploying use-case specific enterprise AI systems, including operational agility and compliance with regulatory environments, while acknowledging the low-hanging fruit of enhancing white-collar workforce productivity, optimizing operations, and automating customer service.

Panelists included:

• David Bray, Distinguished Fellow and Chair of the Loomis Accelerator with the Alfred Lee Loomis Innovation Council at the non-partisan Henry L. Stimson Center, and former Chief Information Security Officer at the US Federal Communications Commission

• Johan Harvard, Global AI Advisory Lead at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in London

• Sandeep Mehta, Advisory Board Member of the Ethical AI Governance Group, and former Chief Technology Officer at the Hartford Financial Services Group

• Moderator Daniel W. Linna Jr., Senior Lecturer and Director of Law and Technology Initiatives at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law

Key Takeaways

• The sector-specific variability in the return on investment (ROI) of AI reflects the substantial investment in infrastructure, data standardization, and workforce training to make the systems effective. Harvard explained that the ROI calculus is improving AI’s economic incentives for many stakeholders, making it worthwhile for certain sectors, but the upfront effort remains a prohibitive barrier. Rather than expecting quick wins from an out-of-the-box solution, achieving meaningful ROI with AI requires a strategic, long-term approach.

• While AI offers real productivity gains, the expectations surrounding its transformative power may be over-hyped. AI applications provide tangible, incremental improvements to existing systems and workflows, Mehta noted, but they are not so-called "killer apps.” Mehta reported that, in the finance sector, bullish projections estimate 30 percent productivity gains, but the actual gains are measured at five or six percent.

• The focus on generative AI has diverted attention and resources from other promising approaches. Unlike deep learning, which requires extensive training on vast datasets, active inference is modeled after how humans learn and make predictions with limited information. Bray noted that active inference may offer more privacy-preserving, energy-efficient, and data-efficient solutions, but has been overshadowed by the sunk costs and focus on generative AI, limiting its exploration and adoption.

Read the symposium synthesis report >>

Our 2025 winter Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics convened leading strategists, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the transformative opportunities and profound challenges that AI poses in geopolitics. The event was co-organized by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, ⁠Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL)⁠, and ⁠Insight Centre at University College Cork⁠.

The daylong program included a presentation from V.S. Subrahmanian, Buffett Faculty Fellow and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, on the role of AI in creating and combating deepfakes and influence operations, highlighting its dual-use nature. Malicious actors use large language models and AI-powered tools such as reinforcement learning to dynamically alter their behavior, learn from what they observe, and evade detection.

Professor Subrahmanian's Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL) team is a global leader among a growing multidisciplinary community developing and deploying AI technologies to address these global threats. The Global Online Deepfake Detection System (GODDS), for example, is a tool for verified journalists to substantiate the authenticity of audio, images, and videos. GODDS uses 20 predictive models to test whether an artifact is real or fake and incorporates contextual variables which increases the prediction capability by up to 15 percent.

Key Takeaways

• Democratic governments are increasingly considering using deepfakes in covert operations. Subrahmanian coauthored a report with Daniel W. Linna Jr. and Daniel Byman examining hypothetical scenarios in which democratic governments might consider using deepfakes to advance their foreign policy objectives and the potential harms this use might pose to democracy. Decisions about creating or using deepfakes, especially by governments, must consider efficacy, harms, legality, and traceability, requiring robust governance and ethical guidelines.

• What used to be a human-in-the-loop cat and mouse game is increasingly being automated, with attackers and defenders dynamically adapting to each other’s strategies in real time. Malicious actors adapt their strategies based on defender actions, and vice versa. Adopting a predictive approach — training systems to anticipate future tactics rather than just reacting to current ones — is essential.

• Bot farms balance two competing objectives: maximize influence and minimize detection of fraudulent accounts. Bots are designed to act subtly, avoiding detection by being less overtly positive or negative in their messaging. They aim to influence through quantity rather than intensity, illustrating a shift toward more nuanced tactics in influence operations.

Read the symposium synthesis report >>

Our 2025 winter Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics convened leading strategists, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the transformative opportunities and profound challenges that AI poses in geopolitics. The event was co-organized by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL), and Insight Centre at University College Cork.

The daylong program's first panel discussion focused on international governance of AI. The panel discussed the complex interplay between geopolitics and the international governance of AI, emphasizing how national strategic interests and power dynamics — particularly between technologically advanced nations like the US and China — overshadow regulatory considerations. Panelists included:

• Yaron Gamburg, Research Associate at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel-Aviv, Israel

• Maria Vanina Martinez, Tenured Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute at the Spanish National Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain

• Ruby Scanlon (SESP ’22), Research Assistant in the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for New American Studies in Washington, DC, who studied international relations and social policy at Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy

• Moderator Neha Jain, Professor of Law at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law and Deputy Director of the Buffet Institute

Key Takeaways

• Country-specific and regional AI governance reflects dynamic geopolitical priorities. Favoring a light-handed approach to avoid stifling technological growth, the US has focused on leveraging its AI leadership for national security. Scanlon noted that the US encourages voluntary collaboration between the private sector and agencies like the National Institute of Standards and Technology for AI model testing and accountability. Israel is among the innovation-focused countries tailoring sector-specific regulations for specific AI applications, such as interventional clinical trials using AI-based tools. In Latin America — where AI is forecasted to boost the region’s GDP by more than 5 percent by 2030, according to a report by The Economist — governments have demonstrated interest in adapting flexible, risk-based regulations inspired by the EU model. According to Martinez, the Milei administration in Argentina is moving toward complete deregulation of AI to catalyze innovation and foreign investment.

• Collaborative frameworks aim to expand strategic partnerships and increase diplomatic relations. In addition to the 38 OECD member countries, several non-members signed on as adherents of the Principles on AI, including Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Malta, Peru, Romania, Singapore, Ukraine, and Uruguay. In addition, the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence was drafted by the 46 member states in conjunction with all observer and several non-member states. Gamburg explained that a new India-Israel coalition strives to foster the development of mutually beneficial advanced technologies through a proposed middle path between the stringent EU and relatively lenient US regulatory models.

• Political and economic imperatives outweigh ethical concerns in many regions, sometimes at the expense of societal and human rights protections. Martinez underscored that AI development often relies on labor and data harvesting from developing nations. Workers in regions like Africa, Asia, and Latin America label data and curate content, often under exploitative conditions, prompting calls for better safeguards. Due to the global power imbalance, developing nations in the so-called Global South are being left behind in the race toward artificial general intelligence — and thus advocate for international cooperation to enhance local capacity while preserving their autonomy.

Read the symposium synthesis report >>

AI has become a key driver of geopolitical competition, with countries vying for technological supremacy and economic dominance. The potential of AI technologies to revolutionize industries, enhance military capabilities, and shape societal norms has far-reaching implications for the disruption of traditional geopolitical balances. As AI development accelerates, it poses unique and mounting challenges to governance frameworks, raising urgent questions about international regulation and cooperation.

What are the geopolitical risks and opportunities associated with AI development? What strategies are being developed to prevent the misuse of AI? How can states promote responsible and ethical AI development to shape the future of AI in a way that benefits humanity?

Our 2025 winter Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics convened leading strategists, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the transformative opportunities and profound challenges that AI poses in geopolitics. Our speakers offered insights on how AI technologies influence global power dynamics, national security, economic development, international relations, and more, exploring the role that international governance and cooperation will play in its future. The event was co-organized by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL), and Insight Centre at University College Cork.

The daylong program kicked off with a presentation on the European Union AI Act from Barry O’Sullivan, Professor of Computer Science and IT at the University College Cork, Ireland, Director of the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics, and Director of the Research Ireland Centre for Research Training in AI.

The European Union Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act) is the world’s first comprehensive legislation aimed at regulating AI. The EU’s risk-based framework categorizes AI systems as unacceptable, high-risk, or low-risk, with stringent requirements for high-risk applications in areas like healthcare, education, and law enforcement. The EU AI Act prioritizes ethical AI principles, including human oversight, fairness, and the protection of fundamental rights. Practices like mass surveillance, real-time biometric identification, and predictive policing are banned.

Key Takeaways

• The Act prioritizes ethical safeguards and fundamental rights. O’Sullivan noted that it is important that the EU builds upon the regulation to increase the pace of innovation in the Union. O’Sullivan explained that there is a fear that the stringent rules for high-risk application domains like healthcare, education, employment, and public services may compromise innovation in these areas, leading developers to redirect efforts to less-regulated markets like the US and China, where innovation takes precedence, leaving the EU overly reliant on imported advanced AI technology.

• Compliance with the EU AI Act is resource-intensive, requiring organizations to conduct risk assessments, ensure technical robustness, and train employees in AI literacy. Startups and small-to-medium enterprises may struggle to bear these costs, potentially stifling competition and favoring larger corporations.

• The EU AI Act’s detailed requirements, including the shifting roles of providers and deployers, introduce a complex legal framework. This may lead to progress-halting debates and disputes about whether specific systems qualify as AI and how liabilities are assigned.

Read the symposium synthesis report >>

Our 2024 fall Buffett Symposium, Abortion Access Today: Global Insights and Comparisons, convened leading strategists, researchers, medical practitioners, and human rights advocates from Colombia, Ireland, Kenya, Poland, and the U.S. to discuss abortion access around the world. 

The third and final panel of this daylong program focused on global trajectories of abortion access. Panelists discussed the political, geopolitical, cultural, and legal factors shaping divergent paths in abortion access and what they reveal about the underlying forces at play and future trajectories worldwide.

Panelists included:

• Caitlin Bernard, Assistant Professor of Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Indiana University School of Medicine and one of only two physicians still performing abortions in Indiana

• Camilla Fitzsimons, Associate Professor of Adult and Community Education at Maynooth University in Ireland and author of Repealed: Ireland's Unfinished Fight for Reproductive Rights

• Krystyna Kacpura, President of the Foundation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA) in Poland

• Catalina Martinez, Vice President of the Latin America & the Caribbean unit of the Center for Reproductive Rights

• Katherine Mayall, Director of Strategic Initiatives within the Legal Strategies, Innovation & Research unit of the Center for Reproductive Rights

• Evelyne Opondo, Director of the International Center for Research on Women's Africa offices

• Moderated by Deborah Cohen, Director of Northwestern University's Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and Richard W. Leopold Professor of History at the Northwestern University Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Key Takeaways

• Transnational anti-abortion groups have become increasingly sophisticated in their tactics to influence government policy. Panelists highlighted tactics such as blackmailing key government leaders and orchestrating the demotion of officials supporting abortion access. They stressed the need to “demystify their narratives,” increase understanding of the groups’ operations, and recognize that their influence extends beyond religious arguments to issues of power and governance.

• Misinformation campaigns continue to spread in the digital realm, creating risks for abortion care advocates and providers while impeding global abortion access. Although governments are often scrutinized for their abortion policies, the role of technology companies in controlling abortion-related information also warrants attention. Stakeholders should hold technology companies accountable for their part in global abortion disinformation campaigns. At the same time, organizations need to actively pursue public education initiatives to combat false narratives and destigmatize abortion discussions.

• Creative strategies to expand abortion access vary by context but share themes of solidarity, information sharing, and targeted messaging. These strategies range from solidarity campaigns, such as Polish women declaring on social media their willingness to be jailed alongside an activist prosecuted for sending abortion pills to a sexual violence survivor, to legal actions such as filing lawsuits in the U.S. on behalf of women affected by abortion restrictions. Campaigns such as sending cushions to a politician in Ireland or wearing green bandannas in Colombia gave high public visibility to the cause.

• Health care providers can help in expanding abortion access, not only through providing services but also as trusted sources of information. Medical professionals need support to effectively frame issues in ways that the public can understand. Moreover, the rise of telemedicine and medicated abortions is reshaping abortion access globally, making it essential to understand how to safely and equitably integrate them into health care systems.

⁠Read the symposium synthesis report produced by Foreign Policy >>⁠

Our 2024 fall Buffett Symposium, Abortion Access Today: Global Insights and Comparisons, convened leading strategists, researchers, medical practitioners, and human rights advocates from Colombia, Ireland, Kenya, Poland, and the U.S. to discuss abortion access around the world. 

The second panel of this daylong program focused on global expansions in abortion access. Five dozen countries have liberalized their abortion laws in recent decades, representing notable victories of activists in nearly every continent. The panelists who joined us to discuss their strategies and the variations in access that remain were:

• Catalina Martinez, Vice President of the Latin America & the Caribbean unit of the Center for Reproductive Rights

• Evelyne Opondo, Director of the International Center for Research on Women's Africa offices

• Camilla Fitzsimons, Associate Professor of Adult and Community Education at Maynooth University in Ireland and author of Repealed: Ireland's Unfinished Fight for Reproductive Rights

• Moderator Sarah Rodriguez, Associate Professor of Instruction at the Northwestern University Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences' Program in Global Health Studies

Key Takeaways

• Persistent advocacy efforts can expand abortion access, even in traditionally conservative contexts. Ireland’s thirty-five-year campaign, led by unrelenting feminist advocates, resulted in the 2018 referendum outcome in favor of abortion access. In Colombia, as the country emerged from a long-running civil war, and civil and political rights were being strengthened, social mobilization, combined with a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court, proved effective in overcoming abortion access restrictions, with a 2022 Constitutional Court ruling protecting abortion access.

• National progress on abortion access can be undermined by the foreign aid policies of donor countries. In 2013, the Kenyan government created guidelines for the provision of safe abortion services. However, they retracted these guidelines almost immediately, following concerns about U.S. foreign assistance. Although the global gag rule was not in effect that year, there were fears that Kenyan health programs would lose funding if their representatives were to attend meetings about these guidelines. As a result, safe abortion remained difficult for Kenyan women to access; according to one report, seven women and girls in Kenya die each day from unsafe abortions. In 2019, the Kenyan High Court ruled that the withdrawal of the guidelines had been illegal and arbitrary.

• Tailoring messages to different audiences can unlock wider support for abortion access. In Colombia, advocates developed distinct narratives targeting various sectors of society. They emphasized personal autonomy in some instances, framed abortion access as a public health and social justice issue in others, and for lawmakers, presented it as a matter for health care regulations rather than the penal code. Their strategy also included engaging 200 cultural influencers, such as musicians, to speak out about abortion rights in ways that resonated with them, amplifying the advocacy. This varied approach helped to broaden support by addressing different concerns and perspectives.

• Building diverse, intersectional coalitions can strengthen abortion rights movements. Successful campaigns involved collaboration across different sectors of society, including reaching out to non-traditional allies such as progressive religious groups, and addressing the intersections of abortion access with race, class, and geography. In Ireland, during the 2018 referendum to expand abortion access, 20,000 volunteers were involved in door-to-door canvassing, demonstrating the importance of broad-based community mobilization to effect change.

⁠Read the symposium synthesis report produced by Foreign Policy >>⁠

While dozens of countries have liberalized laws governing access to abortion over the past quarter-century, a handful of nations have reversed course, including the U.S. Today, two in five women of reproductive age live in countries with restrictive abortion laws, and even in countries where abortion is broadly legal, access varies dramatically based on individual circumstances.

Where is abortion access heading globally, and what factors are influencing trajectories in different regions? What can we learn from the strategies making significant impacts in different global contexts? When and how has abortion—a very private issue—become a matter of foreign policy?

Our 2024 fall Buffett Symposium convened leading strategists, researchers, medical practitioners, and human rights advocates from Colombia, Ireland, Kenya, Poland, and the U.S. to discuss abortion access around the world. These leaders explored the dynamics behind increased liberalization and ongoing challenges to access, offering insights on movements for and in opposition to safe and legal abortion.

The daylong program's initial panel focused on global restrictions in abortion access. In recent decades, only four countries have restricted or reversed the legality of abortion: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Poland, and the U.S. The panelists who joined us to discuss these outliers in global trends toward liberalization were: 

• Krystyna Kacpura, President of the Foundation for Women and Family Planning (FEDERA) in Poland

• Katherine Mayall, Director of Strategic Initiatives within the Legal Strategies, Innovation & Research unit of the Center for Reproductive Rights

• Caitlin Bernard, Assistant Professor of Clinical Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Indiana University School of Medicine and one of only two physicians still performing abortions in Indiana

• Moderator Katie Watson, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Key Takeaways

• Abortion access continues to be politicized and criminalized, despite being an essential health care issue. In Poland, the restrictive abortion law proved difficult to repeal due to a politicized and protracted legislative process. Reforms are dependent on political events such as the next presidential elections in 2025, rather than on medical advice and public health needs.

• Grassroots organizations, health care providers, and women seeking abortions have devised workarounds to ensure access to abortion care despite legal restrictions. These efforts include travelling to other states or countries where abortion is legal, and providing support to vulnerable groups such as refugees. However, these makeshift solutions are precarious and unsustainable and have caused delays that affect the health and well-being of women and adolescent girls.

• Abortion service providers face harassment, targeting, and legal risks, which impede their work and undermine health care. For example, in the United States, state-level restrictions have led to clinic closures, forcing providers to leave certain states. Supporting and protecting these providers is essential for ensuring continued access to safe abortions.

• Lessons from restrictions on abortion access offer an opportunity to reimagine supportive policies. Restrictions often impose arbitrary gestational limits such as six-week bans or conscience clauses to try to make people reconsider seeking an abortion, which hinder access and delay medical care. Several panelists argued that having no abortion law would be preferable, leaving abortion as a purely medical decision between patients and physicians, free from political interference.

⁠⁠Read the symposium synthesis report produced by Foreign Policy >>⁠