While major advances in science and technology continue to pose traditional ethical challenges, the worsening geopolitical landscape – including the spread of armed conflict and environmental destruction – makes renewed ethical scrutiny more urgent than ever. 

This interdisciplinary event, “Existential Threats and Other Disasters: Novel (Bio)ethical Solutions for Novel Challenges” to be held in Paris on 11 and 12 June 2026, will feature keynote lectures, paper presentations, and panel discussions on existential risks and ethical strategies to mitigate them, as well as on the potential for scientific and technological innovations to contribute to human flourishing.

The Center for the Study of Bioethics’ (CSB) is pleased to collaborate with The Hastings Center, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Centre for Bioethics, and Columbia University’s Master of Bioethics Program to organize the conference.

In 2024, CSB, with The Hastings Center and The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics coorganized “Existential Threats and Other Disasters: How Should We Address Them?” Held in Budva, Montenegro, it featured a distinguished lineup, including Peter Singer, Julian Savulescu, Arthur Caplan, Josephine Johnston, Ingmar Persson, Anders Sandberg, as well as the conference organizers Vardit Ravitsky, Roger Crisp and Vojin Rakić.

The 2026 Paris conference continues this trajectory. It will assess the critical questions raised in 2024 in light of the rapid evolution of global crises. Building on the foundation established in the 2024 conference, the Paris event will adopt a broader scope, adding novel and diverse perspectives, organizers and participants, explicitly addressing not only catastrophic risks but also the constructive ethical deployment of emerging technologies.

Over the past decade, CSB has played a pivotal role in organizing major international conferences, bringing together leading scholars in bioethics and related fields to address pressing global challenges. In 2013, it co-hosted “Enhancement: Cognitive, Moral, and Mood” with the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, featuring speakers such as Peter Singer, Julian Savulescu, and John Harris.

In 2015, CSB and The Hastings Center organized “Enhancing Understanding of Enhancement” with keynote lectures by Harris and Erik Parens. In 2017, CSB joined forces with NYU’s Division of Medical Ethics and The Hastings Center for the conference “Genome Editing: Biomedical and Ethical Perspectives”. These events, held in Belgrade, attracted international attention and participation. 

In 2021, CSB partnered with Oxford University’s Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities to revisit the enhancement debate in a second edition of its 2013 conference, reflecting on ethical developments over the previous decade.