CYIL vol. 16 (2025)

CYIL 16 (2025) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: A FOCUS ON SELECTED … will continue to be addressed primarily from the perspective of national law. It may also be expected that states will show interest in establishing bilateral or multilateral, i.e., regional legal frameworks, for example, within the territory of the European Union. With regard to trains and automobiles, the contribution discusses relevant European Union rules in the field of artificial intelligence. For all the means of transport examined, the question arises as to the extent to which current rules of the public international law are applicable to the issue of artificial intelligence. For the purposes of this paper, it is possible to work with the hypothesis that in the future, international legal regulation in the form of legally binding rules (hard law), especially international treaties, will be necessary for all means of transport. It can also be expected that rules of a non-binding nature (soft law) will be drafted, and the states might be willing to respect them, despite their lack of legal enforceability. The diversity in the types of legal regulation applicable to the means of transportation examined, together with the legal framework defined for this paper, justifies the authors’ greater focus on ships and aircraft and the allocation of less space to trains and cars. This paper does not address all issues in the field of international law and artificial intelligence, but rather focuses on the theoretical question of transport vehicles utilizing various degrees of control by artificial intelligence. The paper reflects on how current public international law rules are applicable to autonomous systems being developed in relation to ships, aircraft, trains, and automobiles. From the perspective of individual branches of international law, attention is paid to relevant issues in the areas of international maritime law and international civil aviation law, with a view toward future legal development. From the perspective of regional legal regulation, the unifying framework for all the means of transport examined is the EU AI Act, which, however, is conceived at a very general level. With regard to trains and cars, it is therefore currently appropriate to rely primarily on relevant directives, i.e., EU secondary law. 1. Definition of the general terms The term artificial intelligence (AI) is not defined in general international law through a legally binding definition. International legal regulation should be flexible and capable of responding to forthcoming technological changes. However, given the nature of the contractual and customary sources of international law, and the complicated, long-term process of their creation, such flexibility appears unlikely. The creation of international legal regulation of artificial intelligence at a general level thus seemed difficult to implement. On the other hand, the tolerance of states towards the use of artificial intelligence, particularly in its legally unregulated forms, remains evident in widespread practice. 1 However, efforts to address artificial intelligence issues within certain areas (branches) of international law should not be overlooked. Examples include international maritime law, where the International Maritime Organization (IMO) addresses this issue in relation to ships, and civil aviation, where the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) plays a significant role. Considerable attention is also devoted by states and scholars to the issue of weapons that can operate without human intervention, or only with limited human supervision.

1 BURRI, Thomas. International law and artificial intelligence. In: German Yearbook of International Law. 2017, vol 60, pp. 97–98.

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