The Proliferation Problem

The international AI governance landscape now features over forty distinct coordination mechanisms, each promising to fill the “global governance gap.” The OECD AI Principles, UNESCO Recommendation, UN AI Advisory Body, EU AI Act, G7 Hiroshima Process, Council of Europe Framework Convention, and bilateral agreements between major powers create a complex web of overlapping commitments.

This proliferation presents a fundamental paradox: increasing the number of coordination mechanisms appears to reduce actual coordination effectiveness. As frameworks multiply, governments face impossible choices about resource allocation, priority frameworks, and conflicting requirements. The result is ceremonial participation without substantive implementation.

Resource Dilution Across Mechanisms

Government officials responsible for AI governance coordination face systematic capacity constraints. Participating meaningfully in forty-plus international processes requires dedicated staff, travel budgets, preparation time, and senior-level attention that most governments cannot sustain.

The practical result: governments send representatives to international meetings, sign commitments, and issue press releases celebrating participation. However, the systematic tracking mechanisms required to translate ceremonial commitment into operational implementation remain absent.

The “Coordination Theatre” Pattern

Analysis of government responses to international AI governance frameworks reveals a consistent pattern: enthusiastic participation in framework development, ministerial statements emphasising commitment to coordination, followed by minimal operational adjustment to domestic AI governance processes.

This creates what ISAR Global terms “coordination theatre” – the performance of international cooperation without the institutional infrastructure to translate coordination commitments into domestic policy changes. Framework proliferation enables this pattern by allowing governments to point to participation in multiple processes whilst avoiding accountability for implementation in any specific framework.

Strategic Implications

The multiplication of AI governance frameworks creates strategic opportunities for forum shopping and regulatory arbitrage. Governments and corporations can selectively emphasise participation in frameworks aligned with existing practices whilst ignoring or downplaying frameworks requiring substantive adjustment.

For genuine coordination effectiveness, the international community faces a choice: continue proliferating frameworks and accept ceremonial coordination, or consolidate around fewer mechanisms with genuine accountability and implementation tracking.

Current trajectories suggest continued proliferation with declining coordination effectiveness – more frameworks generating less actual international alignment on AI governance practices.

Towards Coordination Effectiveness

Reversing coordination theatre requires systematic attention to implementation tracking rather than framework creation. This means:

Transparency requirements – Regular reporting on domestic implementation of international commitments, published in accessible formats enabling cross-jurisdictional comparison

Resource concentration – Governments prioritising meaningful participation in fewer frameworks over ceremonial attendance at numerous processes

Accountability mechanisms – Independent assessment of whether framework participation translates into domestic policy adjustment

Without these elements, framework proliferation will continue generating coordination rhetoric whilst coordination reality deteriorates through resource dilution and strategic forum shopping.

The test of international AI governance effectiveness is not how many frameworks exist, but whether participation in those frameworks demonstrably influences domestic governance practices. Current patterns suggest negative correlation: more frameworks, less coordination.

About This Analysis: This brief examines the gap between AI governance coordination rhetoric (framework proliferation) and coordination reality (implementation effectiveness). Analysis reflects ISAR Global’s systematic tracking of government participation patterns across international AI governance mechanisms.