---
type: source
title: "CoE AI Framework Convention: EU Parliament ratification approval + Canada/Japan accession (2026)"
author: "Council of Europe / European Parliament"
url: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2026-0071_EN.html
date: 2026-03-11
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: []
format: thread
status: processed
processed_by: leo
processed_date: 2026-04-06
priority: high
tags: [ai-governance, international-treaty, council-of-europe, ratification, stepping-stone]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

On March 11, 2026, the European Parliament approved the conclusion by the EU of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law (CETS 225). The treaty had already entered into force on November 1, 2025, after UK, France, and Norway ratified (the three required CoE member states out of five total needed).

Canada and Japan also signed — non-Council of Europe members joining, showing expansion beyond European geography.

Norway explicitly committed to applying the Convention fully to private entities as well as public entities. The private sector opt-in mechanism allows each state party to decide whether to apply treaty obligations to private companies. As of early 2026, only Norway has publicly committed to full private sector application.

The EU AI Act is simultaneously being streamlined (Omnibus VII, March 2026): EU Council agreed March 13 to delay high-risk AI system compliance timelines by up to 16 months (to 2027-2028).

The CoE treaty maintains its full national security/defense carve-outs: parties "not required to apply provisions to activities related to the protection of their national security interests."

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** EU ratification is a major expansion — EU member states becoming parties brings significant economic and legal weight. The simultaneous EU AI Act softening (Omnibus VII) creates an interesting dynamic: formal international commitment strengthening while domestic implementation weakening.

**What surprised me:** The EU is simultaneously strengthening formal international governance commitments (ratifying CoE treaty) and weakening domestic substantive obligations (Omnibus VII delays). This is the form-substance divergence pattern manifesting at the domestic level — governance laundering is not just an international treaty phenomenon.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Evidence that any major state is moving to include national security applications in their CoE treaty obligations. Norway's private sector opt-in is notable but does not touch the defense carve-out.

**KB connections:** [[binding-international-ai-governance-achieves-legal-form-through-scope-stratification-excluding-high-stakes-applications]] — this is direct evidence of the treaty expanding while maintaining the stratification structure. [[international-ai-governance-stepping-stone-theory-fails-because-strategic-actors-opt-out-at-non-binding-stage]] — EU ratification complicates the stepping stone failure narrative (EU is ratifying), but the structural limits (national security carve-out) remain.

**Extraction hints:** Two claim candidates: (1) CoE treaty expansion trajectory is bounded by strategic utility — accumulating parties but not closing the national security carve-out. (2) EU form-substance divergence: simultaneous ratification of CoE treaty and Omnibus VII delay reveals governance laundering at the domestic level.

**Context:** The EU AI Act (Regulation 2024/1689) entered into full force with GPAI obligations applying from August 2025 and prohibited practices from February 2025. The high-risk provisions (most substantive obligations) are now being delayed to 2027-2028. The CoE treaty ratification is happening at the same political moment as this implementation weakening.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[binding-international-ai-governance-achieves-legal-form-through-scope-stratification-excluding-high-stakes-applications]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Documents that the scope stratification pattern survives expansion — treaty grows in membership while national security carve-out remains intact; and reveals that domestic governance form and substance can diverge simultaneously
EXTRACTION HINT: Two distinct claims — (1) CoE treaty expansion follows bounded stepping stone trajectory; (2) EU form-substance divergence as governance laundering at domestic level
