It was established in December 2017 by former NATO Secretary General and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen together with businessman Fritz Schur and lawyer Klaus Søgaard.

[1] According to its founder, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the United States is retreating from the world stage, leaving behind a vacuum that is filled by autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Bashar al-Assad.

[3] In March 2021, AoD was one of several entities sanctioned by the Chinese government for "severely harm[ing] China's sovereignty and interests and maliciously spread lies and disinformation," subsequent to sanctions imposed by the European Union on Chinese government officials in Xinjiang for their role in what the EU Council called a "large-scale surveillance, detention, and indoctrination program targeting Muslim ethnic minorities.

Among those who attended were the then-Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Joe Biden, Tony Blair, Stephen Harper, Felipe Calderón, José María Aznar, and Toomas Ilves.

[13] In 2021, Zuzana Čaputová, President of Slovakia spoke arguing that democracy needs three basic lines of defence - independent institutions with responsible public officials, active civil society and free media.

On the sidelines of the 2018 Copenhagen Democracy Summit Anders Fogh Rasmussen together with Michael Chertoff launched the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity, which has Joe Biden, Nick Clegg, Toomas Ilves, and Felipe Calderón among its members.