A Global Duty of Care
We want all people to live in safety.
Governments make decisions with consequences far beyond their own borders.
Technology, conflict, weapons, environmental damage, financial instability and other major risks can affect millions of people who had no part in creating them.
So before taking actions that could cause serious public harm, there is one simple responsibility:
Assess the risks of public harm to others.
And then act to prevent avoidable harm.
That is the Global Duty of Care.
A Simple Shift in Leadership
We already understand Duty of Care in everyday life.
- Doctors assess risks before treatment.
- Engineers assess risks before building.
- Airlines assess risks before flying.
- Employers have responsibilities for people's safety.
Yet some of the decisions capable of causing the greatest harm to humanity can still be approached primarily through national interest, competition and power.
The Global Duty of Care introduces one additional question:
What harm could this decision cause to others?
Not instead of national interest.
Alongside it.
Because responsible leadership means considering both what we want to achieve—
and what harm our actions might cause.
From Reaction to Prevention
Too often, we investigate catastrophe after it happens.
A Global Duty of Care asks us to assess serious risks before they become disasters.
The principle is simple:
- Assess the risk.
- Identify the potential harm.
- Reduce the danger.
- Verify together.
- Keep reviewing.
- Act before catastrophe.
This is not about eliminating every risk.
It is about taking reasonable care when decisions could seriously harm other people.
From Fear to Cooperative Safety
Some risks cannot be made safe by one country acting alone.
Our security is increasingly interconnected.
So the question changes from:
That shift creates the possibility of cooperation.
Instead of simply demanding trust between nations, we can build confidence through shared assessment, transparency and verification.
Verify together to build cooperative trust.
When we examine risks together, we begin with something we already share:
the desire to prevent harm.
What If the World Adopted a Global Duty of Care?
Imagine major decisions being tested against a simple responsibility:
Have we properly assessed the risk of serious public harm to others?
- Before military escalation.
- Before deploying dangerous new technologies.
- Before actions affecting the global environment.
- Before decisions capable of causing catastrophic consequences across borders.
That single question could change the quality of decision-making.
Because prevention begins before the emergency.
A Duty of Care for All Humanity
The Global Duty of Care is a proposal for a simple principle of global governance:
Those whose decisions may create serious risks to others should have a duty to assess those risks and take reasonable steps to prevent harm.
It does not ask governments to abandon their responsibility to their own people.
It asks them to recognise something equally important:
their decisions can affect other people's lives too.
National responsibility and global responsibility do not have to compete.
They can reinforce one another.
The Ultimate Test
Behind laws, institutions, treaties and policies is a very simple human question:
Does this reduce the risk of harm and help people live in safety?
That is the standard we are inviting governments, institutions, businesses, professionals — and ultimately all of us — to consider.
Because humanity does not need to wait for catastrophe before learning how to prevent it.
- We can choose care earlier.
- We can assess risks together.
- We can build trust through verification.
- And we can make prevention part of responsible leadership.
Assess the risks. Prevent the harm. Protect the people.
We want all people to live in safety.
- From risk to responsibility.
- From fear to cooperation.
- From preventable harm to shared safety.
The Mission
Global Duty of Care is a movement for safer global leadership - a simple standard asking every decision capable of serious harm to assess the risk, prevent the harm, and protect the people affected.