A Global Citizen Assembly is a proposal to convene a representative, randomly selected body of people from across all countries to deliberate on problems that cross borders (e.g. climate, AI, pandemics) and issue recommendations or mandates to inform global governance.
It adapts the methods of Sortition and Citizen Assemblies to the planetary scale, aiming to complement intergovernmental institutions with the considered voice of a mini-public that mirrors the world’s population - democracywithoutborders.org 
# Origins of the Idea
The intellectual roots lie in late-20th-century Deliberative Democracy and mini-publics. James Fishkin’s “deliberative polling” (from 1988) and subsequent citizens’ assemblies demonstrated how randomly selected, informed citizens can form considered judgments; scholars such as John Dryzek later argued that this logic could be extended to the global level, proposing a *deliberative global citizens’ assembly* in 2011 - wikipedia.org and onlinelibrary.wiley.com
# From Concept to Practice The first large demonstration was the **Global Assembly** aligned with COP26 (Glasgow, Oct–Nov 2021). One hundred participants drawn by global sortition met online over 11 weeks, heard evidence from experts and community “witnesses,” and issued a People’s Declaration presented at COP26.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres publicly welcomed the effort, and the full report was published in March 2022 - globalassembly.org globalassembly.org iswe.org
# What Do We Call the Method? At its core the selection method is **sortition** (random selection). In practice, organizers use a **civic lottery** with **stratification** to match global demographics (region, gender, age, urban/rural, etc.).
Thus, when discussing a planetary-scale body, the most accurate phrasing is **“stratified sortition via a global civic lottery.”** This distinguishes it from open sign-ups and from pure random draws without representational quotas. sortitionfoundation.org participedia.net
# Key Milestones
The 2021 Global Assembly’s Declaration at COP26 marked the first widely noted attempt to express a democratically selected global public voice on climate. Follow-on advocacy has focused on institutionalizing a **permanent** global assembly linked to multilateral forums, with proposals surfacing around the UN’s 2024 Summit of the Future and beyond - forbes.com unfoundation.org
# Current Advocates and Networks Active champions include the Iswe Foundation and partners behind the 2021 Global Assembly; policy and research supporters such as Democracy Without Borders; analysts and conveners writing through Carnegie Endowment; and directories like **GloCan** mapping organizations, funders, and practitioners working on global citizen deliberation.
Related initiatives (e.g., Missions Publiques’ *We, the Internet* global dialogues) demonstrate logistics for cross-border mini-publics that inform this field - iswe.org democracywithoutborders.org carnegieendowment.org glocan.org missionspubliques.org participedia.net
# Open Questions
Designers continue to debate mandate, linkage to institutions (e.g., UNFCCC, UN General Assembly), frequency and permanence, translation and digital inclusion, resourcing, and safeguarding against capture—while empirical studies are beginning to assess influence and legitimacy claims at the global scale - sciencedirect.com