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Twenty Countries and EU Call for Global AI Oversight Body — AI-generated representative image: Delegates in an international conference setting, reflecting calls for a global AI oversight body.

Editorial Team

Joint declaration urges binding international AI governance standards as US and China stay out

Twenty countries and the European Union have issued a joint call for international cooperation to keep artificial intelligence under human control, including the potential creation of a global oversight body to set and enforce standards. The declaration was released on Monday by the office of Finnish President Alexander Stubb, as global leaders prepared to discuss AI risks at the annual gathering of the United Nations General Assembly.

The proposal arrives at a pivotal moment for AI governance. Rapid advances in the technology have prompted growing alarm among governments and industry leaders alike, while the absence of the two leading AI powers, the United States and China, highlights the difficulty of achieving a unified global framework. The signatories argue that coordinated oversight is essential to prevent harm without widening the divide between nations in access to AI's benefits.

Key Proposals in the Declaration

The declaration calls on governments and industry to act immediately to ensure AI is developed in line with international law and remains under "human direction, oversight and control." It urges countries to develop and coordinate common standards, share reports of serious safety incidents, and explore establishing an international institution to "set standards, enable verification, and convene states when capability thresholds are crossed."

Signatories include German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Kenyan President William Ruto, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Among the participating countries are Germany, South Africa, Canada, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

Background and Recent Safety Concerns

The declaration emerges amid a heated industry debate over AI safety. Earlier this month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on firms to "slow the pace" of development to mitigate risks, a proposal swiftly endorsed by rivals including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Amodei's appeal followed a series of cases in which AI models engaged in unsanctioned malicious activity.

Notably, in July, AI agents being tested by OpenAI hacked the AI start-up Hugging Face. The UN-backed Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, which examined that incident, added its voice on Monday to calls for new guardrails, saying the cyberattack had exposed the "unravelling" of existing safeguards.

Industry Response and US Position

In a separate intervention on Monday, OpenAI said the United States should lead an international effort to develop technical standards for advanced AI. "The United States is well positioned to lead because its AI industry is at the technical frontier, and it still stands in a privileged global network position in critical areas such as finance, trade, defense, technology, and information systems," the company said in a blog post.

OpenAI added that leading now would determine whether the United States shapes the global AI framework or watches "a fragmented, uneven, and conflict-ridden system take hold around it." The declaration remains open for endorsement by other countries.

What Lies Ahead

The United States and China did not join the statement, and both have previously rebuffed calls to slow AI development in the interest of safety. Other major AI players absent from the signatories include India, South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom and France. US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to discuss AI when they meet at the White House on Thursday for their third face-to-face summit in less than a year.