---
type: source
title: "Stepping stone theory in AI governance: soft law as hard law precursor — academic evidence and limits"
author: "BIICL / Oxford Academic / Modern Diplomacy"
url: https://www.biicl.org/blog/121/bridging-soft-and-hard-law-in-ai-governance
date: 2026-04-06
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: []
format: thread
status: processed
processed_by: leo
processed_date: 2026-04-06
priority: low
tags: [soft-law, hard-law, stepping-stone, governance-theory, academic, international-relations]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

Academic synthesis from multiple sources on soft-to-hard law transitions in AI governance:

**Theoretical support for stepping stone:**
- "With the practice and accumulation of soft law, it can be transformed into hard law through legislation or revision of existing laws, so as to establish a more comprehensive and specific legal framework"
- UNESCO declarations on genetics/bioethics → baseline that influenced policymaking in 219 member states
- OECD AI Principles (endorsed by 40+ countries) cited in national AI strategies, demonstrating voluntary frameworks can have tangible regulatory influence

**Current AI governance landscape:**
- "Most of these remain in the realm of non-binding 'soft law'" (post-2023 surge in international AI governance initiatives)
- "Many influential voices increasingly arguing that international AI governance would eventually need to include elements that are legally binding"
- ASEAN specifically moving from soft to hard rules (Modern Diplomacy, January 2026) — pushed by Singapore and Thailand

**Structural limits of stepping stone:**
- Soft law's utility is in domains where "flexibility is key" — fast-evolving technological domains
- The step from soft → hard law requires political will PLUS interest alignment
- UNESCO bioethics example succeeded because it involved no competitive dynamics between major powers (genetics research wasn't a strategic race)
- OECD AI Principles influence is limited to administrative/procedural governance, not capability constraints

**The hard/soft distinction in AI:**
- Technical governance (IETF/TCP standards): network effects enforce soft → hard standards de facto, without formal treaty
- Social governance (GDPR, content moderation): requires political will + interest alignment
- Safety/military governance: requires strategic interest alignment, which is absent

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** This provides the academic framing for why the stepping stone theory has domain-specific validity. The UNESCO bioethics analogy is instructive: it worked because genetics research governance didn't threaten any actor's strategic advantage. AI governance's soft-to-hard trajectory depends on whether the domain has competing strategic interests.

**What surprised me:** The ASEAN soft-to-hard transition (January 2026) is a genuinely positive data point I hadn't tracked — smaller blocs without US/China veto dynamics may be moving faster than global frameworks. This is worth watching as a "venue bypass" analog.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Specific evidence that the OECD AI Principles have influenced hard law for capability constraints (not just procedural governance). The 40+ country endorsement is real, but the effect seems to be administrative process improvements, not capability limitations.

**KB connections:** [[venue-bypass-procedural-innovation-enables-middle-power-norm-formation-outside-great-power-veto-machinery]] — ASEAN's soft-to-hard transition is an instance of this. [[international-ai-governance-stepping-stone-theory-fails-because-strategic-actors-opt-out-at-non-binding-stage]] — the academic literature actually partially supports the stepping stone theory for non-capability domains. The claim may need scoping: stepping stone fails specifically for capability-constraining governance, not all AI governance.

**Extraction hints:** Potential claim refinement: the stepping stone theory has domain-specific validity — soft → hard law transitions occur in AI governance for procedural/rights-based domains (UNESCO bioethics model, OECD AI Principles → national laws), but fail for capability-constraining governance (frontier AI development, military AI) because the transition requires interest alignment that is absent in strategic competition domains.

**Context:** The current international AI governance literature is focused on whether the 2023-2025 surge of soft law frameworks (Hiroshima AI Process, Seoul AI Safety Summit, Paris AI Action Summit) will transition to binding frameworks. The academic evidence suggests this depends heavily on the specific domain of governance being attempted.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[international-ai-governance-stepping-stone-theory-fails-because-strategic-actors-opt-out-at-non-binding-stage]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Provides academic grounding for a domain-specific refinement of the stepping stone claim — the claim may be too broad as currently written; should be scoped to capability-constraining governance
EXTRACTION HINT: Focus on the domain-specificity argument — when stepping stone works (UNESCO bioethics, OECD procedural principles) vs. when it fails (capability constraints, strategic advantage domains)
