Accepted Paper
Paper short abstract
We argue that AI governance in legal aid contexts cannot be reduced to compliance with abstract ethical norms. Instead, it must be understood as a situated political process where competing imaginaries of technology, justice, and development are negotiated reflecting 'whose knowledge counts'.
Paper long abstract
As artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly promoted as a solution to access-to-justice challenges, debates around its governance are often framed through universal ethical principles or technocratic problem-solving. This paper challenges both ethical determinism and tech-solutionism by examining AI governance as a process of epistemic contestation within legal aid systems in the Global South. Drawing on empirical work conducted in Tanzania, the paper analyses the development of draft regulations on legal technology for access to justice consulted on during the East Africa Legal Tech for Legal Aid and Access to Justice Conference hosted at the University of Dar es Salaam in February 2025.
The regulatory process brought together legal aid institutions, paralegals, technologists, policymakers, donors, and researchers to negotiate how AI should be governed within fragile justice ecosystems marked by resource constraints, legal pluralism, and colonial legacies. Rather than adopting pre-existing global AI ethics frameworks, the resulting regulatory approach foregrounded principles of decolonisation, justice-centred design, human oversight, data sovereignty, and participatory governance. AI was explicitly limited to decision-support and administrative functions, rejecting automation of legal judgment and recognising the risks of surveillance, power concentration, and digital authoritarianism in justice systems. By foregrounding whose knowledge counts in shaping regulation, this case contributes a Global South perspective to debates on AI governance, highlighting the need to rebalance epistemic authority to ensure just, accountable, and contextually grounded AI futures.
AI governance as epistemic contestation: A global South perspective