The United Nations and the Treaty Track: Global Digital Compact and the CoE Convention

How AI governance reached the UN General Assembly — dueling consensus resolutions, the Global Digital Compact, an IPCC-style Scientific Panel co-chaired by Yoshua Bengio and Maria Ressa — and how the Council of Europe wrote the first binding AI treaty, plus the ratification mechanics that decide when a treaty actually bites.

Content current as of 2026-09.

Lessons

1. The UN enters the chat: dueling resolutions and a compact
2. An IPCC for AI: the Scientific Panel and the Global Dialogue
3. The first binding AI treaty: the Council of Europe Framework Convention
4. Signature is not ratification: how a treaty becomes binding