CIC's Work on Artificial Intelligence

Why Effective AI Governance Depends on Strong Justice Systems

As governments rush to regulate AI, many governance frameworks still overlook what happens when people are harmed. This piece argues that AI governance will be tested by legal systems already struggling to deliver equal access to justice. Drawing on the recent report "A People-Centered Justice Approach to Implementing AI Governance," examples from Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States make the case for bringing courts, legal aid organizations, and justice institutions into the center of AI governance design.

Nate Edwards

Engaged, But Not Married Yet: How to Make Private Sector Engagement in AI Governance More Than a “Tick-the-Box” Exercise

This paper establishes the analytical case for reform: it clarifies the functions that AI governance must perform and the gap between those requirements and current institutional capacity.

Scaling Justice: AI is scaling faster than justice, revealing a dangerous governance gap

21 Lessons from an Expert Discussion on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Governance, and People-Centered Justice

This hybrid meeting brought together over 200 representatives from government, the legal field, international organizations, private sector, and civil society to explore two interconnected issues: 1) How the justice sector can support a more equitable, inclusive, and enforceable AI governance, and 2) how AI can help deliver better justice outcomes for people.

Building Trust in AI through Justice

As AI rapidly enters public services, concerns about transparency, accountability, and fairness are colliding with an already-deepening global trust deficit. This tension is particularly visible in justice systems, where millions interact most directly with the state. This piece explores why the justice sector is a critical proving ground for trustworthy AI, and what’s at stake for democracies if governments fail to get it right.

Nate Edwards

A People-Centered Justice Approach to Implementing AI Governance: How the Justice Sector Can Support Inclusive, Equitable, and Enforceable AI Governance

This paper provides the latest state analysis of AI governance and how the justice sector can enhance its success. The authors couple secondary research and primary analysis of key governance processes with input from an array of experts in the public and private sectors, multilateralism, civil society, and academia to explore two critical questions:

Guidance for the New Global Dialogue on AI Governance

This policy brief proposes an integrated, sequenced, United Nations (UN)-anchored, roadmap for the new Annual Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

A New Era In Digital Governance: The Global Digital Compact’s Blueprint For Change

This blog emphasizes the significant progress achieved with the final version of the Global Digital Compact including its concrete steps to close the digital divide and its focus on AI governance and commitment to human rights and inclusivity, while also outlining challenges and opportunities for governments and stakeholders.

AI for Justice and Justice for AI: Why Access to Justice Enables Better AI Governance

When designing new frameworks to regulate emerging technology, policymakers must use an approach that mitigates power imbalances at the individual and institutional levels.

Safeguarding Human Rights and Judicial Independence in the Age of Algorithmic Justice

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in court systems promises greater efficiency and improved access to justice. Yet, it brings profound risks. Errors, biases, or overreliance on algorithms may undermine judicial independence and human rights. How can judges maintain control over technology while ensuring justice remains human-centered?

Themba Mahleka

Building Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies In the Digital Realm

In this blog, the three Pathfinders Program Directors at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC) analyze the possible impacts of the recently adopted Global Digital Compact (GDC) on the advancement and implementation of SDG16. They also examine how the Compact aligns with ongoing efforts within the Pathfinders’ three Grand Challenges to build peaceful, just, and inclusive societies.

Fostering Inclusivity in the Digital Era: Two Priorities for the UN’s New Global Digital Compact

The ongoing negotiations of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) at the United Nations (UN) in New York, under the leadership of Sweden and Zambia, presents member states with a unique opportunity  to deliver tangible change in people's lives by closing the digital divides. The GDC also holds the promise of ensuring a safer future for all by addressing fragmentation and critical gaps in the global governance of the digital space, including on AI and other emerging technologies.

Fernando Marani

Reform Meets Code: UN80’s Unique Opportunity to Harness AI and Reboot the UN

UN80 brings an opportunity to implement the UN’s outward pledge to use AI internally.

Joris de Mooij

UNGA80: A Crossroads for Peace, Justice, and Inclusion

As world leaders continue to gather in New York for the 80th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies will continue to engage with governments on how to respond to some of the converging crises of our time—inequality, sovereign debt distress, violence and conflict, climate change, global justice gap, democratic backsliding, and trust in institutions at all levels.

Ushering in a New Era of Digital Governance: Next Steps for the GDC

The adoption of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) in September 2024 marked an overdue—but important—turning point. For the first time, all 193 United Nations (UN) member states agreed on a shared global vision for governing the new challenges in today’s digital age. However, the Compact is only the beginning.

Why Member State Engagement Needs to be at the Heart of UN80 to Unlock its Success

This paper offers a practical toolkit of 10 recommendations for strengthening member state engagement in UN80.

Can Emerging Technologies Lead a Revival of Conflict Early Warning/Early Action? Lessons from the Field

The early warning/early action (EWEA) community has been working for decades on analytics to help prevent conflict. The field has evolved significantly since its inception in the 1970s and 80s. The systems have served with variable success to predict conflict trends, alert communities to risk, inform decision makers, provide inputs to action strategies, and initiate a response to violent conflict. Present systems must now address the increasingly complex and protracted nature of conflicts in which factors previously considered peripheral have become core elements in conflict dynamics.

Emerging Technologies: The Ally Human Rights Advocates Need

Human rights have increasingly been impacted by the development of emerging technologies, which have raised many problematic issues in previous years. Many of the issues are not new, but they are greatly exacerbated by the scale and proliferation of AI, big data, and the rise of algorithmic decision-making.

Branka Panic

Towards a Prevention and Peacebuilding Data Hub: Scoping the Future of Data Services and Capacity Building

The complex crises in our world—from rising instability linked to pandemic effects and climate change, to ongoing challenges of civil war, urban violence, violent extremism—require complex analysis and insights. Emerging technologies, data, and data science methods have been recognized as potential tools to help tackle some of these “wicked” problems across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.

Telecom News: Responsible AI key to promote global peace: Experts

CIC's Non-Resident Fellow Branka Panic and former Senior Fellow and Deputy Director Paige Arthur recently published the book, "AI for Peace." They argue that AI-driven technology can be a potential force for good in conflict-torn countries to wage peace.

Strengthening Democracy and the Rule of Law through People-Centered Justice: Regional Strategies and Actions

Our Young Justice Leader, Patricia Ejang, delivered a statement at the "Strengthening Democracy and the Rule of Law through People-Centered Justice: Regional Strategies and Actions" working session during the 2025 World Justice Forum. She emphasized the importance of digital tools and platforms in advancing access to justice.

Patricia Ejang

Mapping with Communities and Artificial Intelligence

This session was part of the Data for Peace 2023: Using Data to Foster Peace Conference over October 16-20, 2023, a five-day hybrid event with national and international experts in the data for peacebuilding and prevention ecosystem to facilitate peer-to-peer exchange and leverage emerging technologies and data science methods to tackle the growing challenges across the humanitarian-development-peace and climate nexus globally. This event was hosted by the NYU Center on International Cooperation and supported by the Complex Risk Analytics Fund (CRAF’d) and its partners, with the in-person segment of the event hosted at Google's NYC office.

AI for Good: Leveraging AI across the UN peace, humanitarian, and human rights pillars

The panel will focus on the role of private-public collaborations in harnessing real-time data & AI to support UN action across the peace, security, humanitarian, and human rights dimensions.

Data for Peace Dialogue: Using AI for Fighting Modern Slavery - Lessons for Peacebuilding

Over 40 million people today are trapped in modern slavery and conditions of severe exploitation worldwide. One in four of them are children, and almost 71 percent are women and girls. Governments are already behind in their commitment to eradicate modern slavery and achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7 by 2030. Data about this form of human rights abuses and vulnerabilities can be difficult to collect and patterns of exploitation difficult to see. On top of that, armed conflict, natural disasters, and other humanitarian settings increase vulnerability to certain forms of forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking, and child labor. In response, some organizations and researchers are looking into available data and the potential of computational science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning tools to help stop modern slavery.