The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Coherence, Time Efficiency, and Power Balance in the UN Tax Convetion Process

Abstract: The drafters of the UN Tax Convention aim to create a fully inclusive and effective international tax system. However, the existing power imbalances and incoherence concerns pose challenges to achieving these goals. This research examines whether the current international tax treaty-making framework at the UN reflects these structural inequalities and shows the existence of these inequalities in the early outcomes of the UN Tax Convention negotiations. The study analyses the negotiation process and outcomes using critical discourse analysis, identifying how dominant actors influence the agenda-setting process. It further highlights the discrepancies between declared objectives and the actual negotiation outcomes, revealing how undefined concepts might lead to incoherence in the process and contribute to legal uncertainty.

Considering these challenges in the UN Tax Convention process, this article questions to what extent AI can contribute to forming a more coherent and power-balanced discourse in the UN Tax Convention process than traditional international treaty-making at the UN. As a result of the analysis, the article proposes two potential AI implications in the international tax treaty-making processes: (1) AI as a drafting tool to generate an initial framework for negotiations, (2) AI as a monitoring tool to detect inconsistencies and reinforced power imbalances in the draft documents. The article concludes that using AI as a drafting tool can not only provide a more coherent and power-balanced system but also a time-efficient one. Furthermore, while using AI as a monitoring tool can also provide these benefits, the time-efficiency factor will not be possible in that option.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, power dynamics, international treaty-making, critical discourse analysis