Participants at a closed CDT Europe civil society workshop in June 2024 discussing promoting fundamental rights in the implementation of AI law. Participants sit in chairs and discuss around a table.
On 18 June, CDT Europe hosted a closed civil society workshop on advancing fundamental rights in the implementation of AI laws, bringing together representatives from leading civil society organisations to brainstorm key opportunities and strategic approaches to ensure that human rights remain at the forefront of the implementation roadmap.
After years of negotiations, the Artificial Intelligence Act, the world’s first law regulating AI, is expected to be published in the European Union’s Official Journal in July 2024 and come into force in early August. Despite being an ambitious attempt to set out forward-looking rules to regulate the development and deployment of AI and protect against risks to fundamental human rights, the law has drawn mixed reactions from human rights groups amid concerns that it falls short.
In the same week that the AI Commission held its first meeting, our workshop brought together representatives from civil society to discuss important next steps to take in the near term.
Laura Lázaro Cabrera, Program Director and Advisor on Equality and Data at CDT Europe, and journalist Luca Bertuzzi opened the event with a discussion on lessons learned by civil society during the negotiation of the AI Law, as well as an in-depth analysis of the current political and regulatory landscape. This opening session was followed by a panel discussion on the governance ecosystem surrounding the implementation of the AI Law, led by Jonathan Schmidt, AI Policy Fellow at CDT EU, Mira Vidina, Head of the European Network of Equality Organizations (Equinet), and Nele Loekens, Head of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions and the Belgian National Human Rights Institution Unia. The panel discussed the structure and role of the different organizations granted governance responsibilities and tasks under the Law. Discussion participants also discussed the role of the Fundamental Rights Authority, which is expected to play a key oversight role due to the powers explicitly granted by the Law to access documentation on high-risk AI systems under Annex III of the Law.
The panel was followed by a presentation by Karolina Iwanska from the European Non-Profit Law Centre, who provided participants with an overview of upcoming procedures and outcomes under the AI Act (around 80 in total) and detailed concrete avenues and opportunities for civil society engagement in the coming months based on the AI Act timeline.
The morning session was followed by breakout sessions in the afternoon, each of which delved deeper into the specific outcomes envisaged by the AI Act.
Fundamental rights impact assessments, codes of practice for general-purpose AI models, guidelines on prohibited AI systems, and guidelines on AI systems classified as high risk under the law
During the event, participants stressed the importance of ensuring the availability of mechanisms for strong and meaningful civil society participation in the development of the above outcomes. Participants discussed strategies to ensure coordinated civil society input to inform future European Commission and AI Office efforts.
“This workshop was an important first step for civil society to establish priorities to support the ongoing work of the EU institutions and the governing bodies created by the AI Law following the approval of the AI Law. Through such exchanges, CDT Europe will continue to encourage civil society collaboration to find innovative solutions to some of the most pressing human rights challenges of the digital age.”
