In collaboration with international experts, UNESCO has developed draft Guidelines for AI use in Courts and Tribunals. UNESCO’s recent survey of judicial operators worldwide highlighted a significant lack of institutional guidance and training on AI systems. The guidelines, shaped by the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, aim to ensure AI technologies are integrated into judicial systems in a way that upholds justice, human rights and the rule of law.

Following extensive expert consultations, the guidelines are now open for public consultation. UNESCO encourages stakeholders, including judicial professionals, legal experts, and the public, to review and provide feedback on the draft guidelines.

The guidelines are developed as part of UNESCO’s Global Toolkit on AI and the Rule of Law, funded by the European Commission project on “Supporting Member States in Implementing UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI through Innovative Tools.” This Toolkit provides judicial operators with the knowledge and tools necessary to understand the benefits and risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their work. 

The Toolkit will support judicial operators in reducing potential human rights risks of AI by offering guidance on the relevant international human rights law instances, principles, regulations, and the emerging case law that underpin the use of AI responsibly. The Toolkit responds to the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, adopted by 193 countries in 2021.

According to UNESCO, the Toolkit’s primary target audience comprises judges, prosecutors, state attorneys, public lawyers, law universities and judicial training institutions. The Toolkit can be tailored to the specific needs of each judicial training programme. The number of hours and the duration of the training programme will depend on the methodology chosen by the judicial training programme. 

The programme may be taught as an online, classroom or hybrid learning scheme, and it may be offered as an intensive or a regular course of an undergraduate, a postgraduate, or a continuous education programme, based on the availability of trainers and the geographical distribution of the enrolled learners for a specific course, and the level of the accessibility and connectivity. 

Deadline for comments: 5 September 2024

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