Amnesty International welcomes the initiative of the Council of Europe to draft a Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law as the first binding human rights instrument on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In the context of a fast-moving technological landscape, where AI systems can exacerbate existing human rights violations at scale and introduce new ones, and in the absence of truly rights-respecting AI governance mechanisms, it is vital that the world’s first binding rights-based framework on AI fully upholds international human rights law to set a high standard for regulating the development and deployment of AI technologies globally. Amnesty International emphasizes the need to ensure an ambitious and effective enforcement framework that prioritizes the protection and promotion of human rights above all.
In this regard, the text of the current draft Convention needs several crucial improvements detailed in this submission, and which should be considered by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe during its Spring Plenary Session on 15-19 April and subsequently by the Committee of Ministers, and introduced in a revised text in order to include the necessary human rights safeguards.