IAIGA is a Geneva-based non-profit initiative working to establish a supranational AI governance body and legally-binding global treaty to ensure AI safety and equitable distribution of AI-derived benefits.
IAIGA is a Geneva-based non-profit initiative working to establish a supranational AI governance body and legally-binding global treaty to ensure AI safety and equitable distribution of AI-derived benefits.
People
Updated 04/02/26Founder and Coordinator
Funding Details
Updated 04/02/26- Annual Budget
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- Current Runway
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Org Details
Updated 04/02/26The International AI Governance Alliance (IAIGA) is a non-profit organization being incorporated in Geneva, Switzerland. It operates as an initiative of the Center for Existential Safety and was introduced publicly in February 2025 via posts on the Effective Altruism Forum and LessWrong. IAIGA was founded by James Norris, who also serves as Executive Director of the Center for Existential Safety and leads several other existential safety-focused organizations including Upgradable and Survival Sanctuaries. Norris has co-founded or helped build 27 organizations across sectors including entrepreneurship, effective altruism, and social innovation, and previously helped establish EA Global, the international conference series for the effective altruism movement. IAIGA proposes a Collective Commitment on AI for humanity, through which participants commit to adhere to internationally accepted safety standards for AI research and development and to an internationally accepted distribution system for AI-derived economic benefits. The organization advocates for an immediate global pause on large-scale frontier AI development until safety can be proven with high certainty, arguing that many experts believe humanity faces a plausible extinction risk from rapidly advancing AI capabilities. The organization is building a team of divergent thinkers and builders including AI safety and global governance experts, and is collecting petition signatures from citizens of individual nations (targeting 5,000 signatures per nation, with an overall goal of 1,000,000 signatures) to encourage national leaders to commit to IAIGA's proposed standards. IAIGA welcomes financial support with a policy of not accepting donations from individuals or organizations that cause a net increase in existential risks, and commits to publishing all donations and financial records publicly. As of its February 2025 launch, IAIGA described itself as a contingency 'Plan B' that would be ready to move rapidly if and when conditions become more receptive to multilateral AI governance approaches.
Theory of Change
Updated 04/02/26IAIGA believes that the current international environment is not yet ready for binding multilateral AI governance, but that a 'warning shot' event or near-catastrophe involving AI systems will create a window of political opportunity for rapid treaty adoption. By building the institutional groundwork, drafting treaty language, assembling experts, and cultivating a broad base of public and organizational support in advance, IAIGA positions itself to move quickly when that window opens. The causal chain runs from: (1) building awareness and consensus now through outreach and petition-gathering; (2) having a credible governance framework ready; (3) capitalizing on a post-crisis moment of political will to establish binding international safety standards and a supranational enforcement body; (4) thereby constraining the most dangerous frontier AI development and distributing AI benefits equitably, reducing extinction risk.
Grants Received– no grants recorded
Updated 04/02/26Projects– no linked projects
Updated 04/02/26Discussion
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