  As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies spread worldwide, international
discussions have increasingly focused on their consequences for democracy,
human rights, fundamental freedoms, security, and economic and social
development. In this context, UNESCO's Recommendation on the Ethics of
Artificial Intelligence, adopted in November 2021, has emerged as the first
global normative framework for AI development and deployment. The intense
negotiations of every detail of the document brought forth numerous
controversies among UNESCO member states. Drawing on a unique set of primary
sources, including written positions and recorded deliberations, this paper
explains the achievement of global compromise on AI regulation despite the
multiplicity of UNESCO member-state positions representing a variety of liberal
and sovereignist preferences. Building upon Boltanski's pragmatic sociology, it
conceptualises the practice of multilateral negotiations and attributes the
multilateral compromise to two embedded therein mechanisms: Structural
normative hybridity and situated normative ambiguity allowed to accomplish a
compromise by linking macro-normative structures with situated debates of
multilateral negotiations.
