THE NEW COUNCIL OF EUROPE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION AND THE FUTURE OF INTELLIGENT ROBOTS IN ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

On 5 September 2024, the brand-new Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law was adopted in Vilnius, Lithuania. The Framework Convention complements existing international standards on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law and aims to address legal gaps arising from rapid technological advances. While the Framework Convention’s scope of application is vast, this article examines how the Convention contributes to recent efforts to deploy artificial intelligence in administrative decision-making. The Framework Convention was adopted during a period when many new legal frameworks governing the administrative decisionmaking of intelligent robots were adopted at the national level. This article argues that the recently adopted national-level legal frameworks are far from technologically neutral. On the contrary, the Framework Convention has been designed to stand the test of time. Consequently, it provides a durable legal framework for the future deployment of intelligent robots in administrative law (and beyond).