Digital Sovereignty and Global AI Governance: Reimagining International Law for The Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed global society by reshaping economic activities, public governance, security, communication, and legal relations beyond territorial boundaries. While AI operates through transnational digital ecosystems, contemporary international law remains largely grounded in state sovereignty, territorial jurisdiction, and state responsibility, creating a governance gap between borderless technological development and territorially fragmented legal regulation. This study aims to reconstruct the conceptual foundations of international law by proposing an integrated governance model for regulating artificial intelligence in the twenty-first century. Employing normative legal research with a qualitative library-based approach, the study critically examines international legal doctrines, contemporary scholarship, and global policy instruments concerning digital sovereignty, AI governance, global governance, and international legal responsibility. The analysis demonstrates that existing approaches including state sovereignty, digital sovereignty, AI ethics, and global governance provide valuable normative insights but remain conceptually fragmented and insufficient to address the multidimensional challenges of artificial intelligence. In response, this article develops the Integrated Global AI Governance Framework (IGAGF), comprising five interconnected dimensions: digital sovereignty, shared international responsibility, multistakeholder governance, AI accountability, and global human protection. The framework reconceptualizes sovereignty as a cooperative principle operating within an integrated international governance architecture rather than as an exclusive basis of regulatory authority. By repositioning international law from a predominantly state-centred system toward a collaborative governance model, the proposed framework offers a new theoretical foundation for regulating borderless AI while promoting legal certainty, accountability, international cooperation, and sustainable human-centred development.