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Paper short abstract

As AI systems govern welfare and policing in the Global South, legal authority shifts to offshore algorithms beyond domestic courts. This paper exposes a due-process gap in AI law and proposes a Digital License to Operate, grounding regulation in sovereign control over data and local audits.

Paper long abstract

As artificial intelligence systems increasingly administer public functions in the Global South—ranging from welfare allocation to predictive policing—core elements of legal authority are being displaced beyond national borders. This study is important because AI governance exercises coercive and distributive power traditionally associated with the state, yet remains regulated through external legal frameworks shaped in the Global North. Existing scholarship largely addresses AI ethics or technical risk management, leaving a gap in procedural and constitutional analysis: how can Global South states assert digital sovereignty when algorithmic decision-making is governed by extraterritorial AI laws, particularly those shaped by the European Union’s regulatory reach? The central research question asks how digital sovereignty can be theorised as a jurisdictional and due-process claim, rather than merely a policy aspiration.

The objective of the study is to develop a doctrinal framework enabling states to reclaim regulatory authority over offshore AI systems that produce local legal effects. Using a desktop-based comparative legal methodology, the research analyses EU AI governance instruments alongside African and Asian regulatory responses between 2018 and 2025. Preliminary findings identify a structural due-process failure within algorithmic governance, exacerbated by the uncritical transplantation of EU-style rules—the so-called “Brussels Effect.” The study proposes a Digital License to Operate doctrine grounded in the principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, reframing data as a collective sovereign asset. The findings suggest that mandatory local algorithmic audits can anchor jurisdiction, offering Global South regulators a practical tool to reassert power and rebalance global AI governance.