A draft treaty on the protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law agreed at the Council of Europe on 14 March would leave it up to countries to decide how to involve the private sector in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), Euractiv reported.
Exemptions for the private and defence sectors were a key point of disagreement in talks on what was called the world’s first international treaty on AI.
The paper argued that the technology did not harm human rights. Deputy Permanent Representative of Hungary’s Mission to the United Nations, Zoltán Turbék, and independent tech journalist Luca Bertuzzi confirmed how the private sector would be treated.
The Council of Europe (CoE), an international human rights body with 46 member states, confirmed on 15 March that a draft treaty had been agreed. The draft will now go to the CoE Committee of Ministers and then be open for ratification by countries.
Signatories will not be obliged to apply the treaty to AI with national security implications. However, they will still have to apply appropriate measures to protect international law and democratic norms, the CoE explains.
The previous draft treaty, called the Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, included almost complete exemptions for national security purposes. States, such as the US, the UK, Canada and Japan, which were attending the negotiations as observers, insisted on those opt-outs.
Germany, France, Spain, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland and Hungary have previously shown support for a narrower scope, prioritising broad implementation instead. The treaty aims for global reach and is therefore open to ratification by states outside the Council of Europe, the CoE states.
