December 12, 2024, 11:00am-12:30pm
CITI Seminar on Global Digital Governance: Governing Artificial Intelligence: The Council of Europe's Convention
The Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law is the first international treaty on AI governance. Adopted in May 2024, the Convention was negotiated in two years by the Council's 46 member states, the European Union, and 11 non-members that include the United States. The treaty sets out general obligations and principles on such issues as human dignity and autonomy, transparency and oversight, accountability, nondiscrimination, privacy, reliability and security; requirements for risk and impact assessments, including testing, monitoring, and the possibility of bans or moratoriums on certain systems; and remedies, procedural rights and safeguards, including the ability to lodge complaints and know when one is interacting with AI instead of a human being. The framework covers AI systems used by public authorities and private actors acting on their behalf, but there are carve-outs for national security, national defense, and research and development. Similarly, at the insistence of the United States and like-minded governments, the Convention eschews uniform binding rules for the private sector and instead allows states to opt-in application to their companies or to pursue self-regulatory approaches. Others participants in the process opposed this limitation, which in the view of many in civil society significantly weakens the agreement.
The Convention's proponents hope that it will become a global framework akin to the Council's 2001 Cybercrime Convention. The Convention also will be nested within an increasingly complex mesh of international governance arrangements for AI that is under construction in the United Nations and multiple other multilateral processes. As such, there are many questions to explore. For example, what mix of interests drove the process and shaped the outcome? Is the treaty an important achievement, an example of regulatory overreach, or unlikely to have significant effects? What are the implications of carving out national security and related issues, and of not uniformly applying mandatory obligations on the private sector? How do we assess the trade-off between having strong rules and bringing governments with diverse positions onboard? How effective was the blending of intergovernmental decision-making and multistakeholder participation?
This webinar will facilitate dialogue on these and related questions. A panel of key negotiation participants and observers will lead off, and then the rest of the session will be devoted to open conversation among all interested attendees.
Introduction of the topic
Eli Noam is Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Emeritus, and Director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia Business School.
Moderator
William J. Drake is Director of International Studies at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School.
Panelists
Omar Bitar is a Senior Policy Advisor at Global Affairs Canada, where he advises on Canada’s foreign policy on the global governance of digital technologies like artificial intelligence. Omar was part of the Canadian delegation that negotiated the Council of Europe Framework Convention. He previously served as Policy Advisor at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, where he led a review of Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision-Making. (Canada)
Christabel Randolph is Associate Director at the Center for AI and Digital Policy, where she oversees the US law and policy group and coordinates statements to Congressional committees and federal agencies. She led the organization's efforts with the Federal Trade Commission to establish guardrails for AI services. Before joining the Center, she held leadership positions across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. She is a licensed attorney before the Supreme Court of Bangladesh with more than a decade of experience in the law and technology field. (USA)
Thomas Schneider is Ambassador and Director of International Affairs at the Swiss Federal Office of Communications in the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications. He served as the Chair of the Council of Europe’s Committee on AI that negotiated the AI Convention. Schneider also was the Vice-Chair of the OECD's Committee for Digital Economy Policy from 2020 to 2022 and the Chair of ICANN's Government Advisory Committee from 2014 to 2018. He has represented Switzerland in a number of international fora related to digital governance, and has been a co-coordinator of the European IGF since 2008. (Switzerland)