Governing Artificial Intelligence in a Fragmented World: Toward a Multi-Level Policy Framework for Global AI Governance
TL;DR
It is argued that a layered subsidiarity approach, with specific financing for capacity-building and technical standards that work across the board, is more likely to deliver effective global AI governance than calls for a binding treaty.
Abstract
Artificial intelligence has moved from a specialised technical concern to a central object of international economic and security policy, yet global governance arrangements remain fragmented across competing regulatory models. This article addresses how policymakers can reconcile innovation, competitiveness, human rights, security and sustainability within a coherent governance architecture for artificial intelligence operating across national, regional and multilateral levels. The goals include the review of the governance theory and current practices applicable to AI regulations, analysis of stakeholders' interests and influence, estimation of the possible economic, social, legal, technological and environmental effects of such an arrangement, as well as the design of a feasible multi-level governance system with monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. The article utilises a qualitative comparative policy analysis based on primary legal documents, which include Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, OECD Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence (as amended in 2024), UN Resolution A/RES/79/325 of 2025, and the Global Digital Compact of 2024, in addition to the academic literature on the subject from peer-reviewed sources and books. This paper proposes a framework that takes into account the multi-level and adaptive governance approaches with a particular emphasis on digital sovereignty, thereby creating a three-tier architecture that will include global normative coordination, regional and plurilateral regulatory clusters, and national or sectoral implementation, illustrated by the case study of Kenya, which has created its National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2025-2030. The main findings in the paper suggest that regulation fragmentation among the European Union, the United States, and China is growing rather than converging, that multilateral instruments do not possess any kind of binding enforcement mechanism, and that low- and middle-income countries like Kenya experience capacity limitations even when developing a proactive national strategy. This paper argues that a layered subsidiarity approach, with specific financing for capacity-building and technical standards that work across the board, is more likely to deliver effective global AI governance than calls for a binding treaty.