AI Needs a Constitution Before It Needs a Code

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Artificial intelligence now shapes economies, elections, and wars. Yet the legal frameworks meant to govern it remain decades behind its capabilities. The conversation is no longer about innovation but about control.

In international law, regulation has always lagged behind technology. The Geneva Conventions followed the weapons they sought to restrain. The same logic applies here. States are building AI systems faster than they can define accountability. The UN and the OECD call for “ethical AI,” but ethics without enforcement is only aspiration.

The Paris Peace Forum brings this gap into full view. States defend their right to develop AI under the principle of sovereignty, while private actors cite intellectual property to resist transparency. Neither approach fits a technology that transcends borders in milliseconds.

Legal scholars argue for a binding international framework, similar to climate accords, but with enforcement mechanisms. Without such structure, the risk grows that a handful of states and companies will dictate the rules by default. Under Article 2 of the UN Charter, sovereign equality is a legal fiction when data power is unequal.

AI needs what law once gave nuclear energy a clear regime of responsibility. Until then, governance remains an illusion. The code evolves. The law hesitates. And the gap widens.