Regulating AI-Enabled Counterterrorism: A Comparative Analysis of Legal Gaps and Governance

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping contemporary counterterrorism by enabling predictive analytics, biometric surveillance, automated monitoring, and large-scale risk assessment. Yet the legal challenges raised by these technologies cannot be fully addressed through conventional security and data governance rules alone. This study examines whether Vietnam’s current legal framework is equipped to regulate AI-enabled counterterrorism and how it compares with major international governance instruments, including the EU AI Act, the OECD AI Principles, the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. Methodologically, the study adopts a doctrinal-comparative qualitative design and develops a four-dimensional analytical framework centered on legality, algorithmic accountability, rights-sensitive risk calibration, and oversight architecture. The analysis shows that Vietnam possesses an important legal foundation in counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and personal data protection, but that framework remains fragmented and insufficiently adapted to the specific risks of algorithmic governance. On the contrary, international models increasingly classify certain security-related AI systems as high-risk and link their deployment to documentation duties, human oversight, traceability, and proportionality-based safeguards. The study argues that the central governance challenge in emerging jurisdictions is not simply the absence of AI-specific legislation, but the lack of a legal structure capable of translating algorithmic risk into reviewable legal categories. It concludes by proposing a context-sensitive governance approach for Vietnam that integrates security effectiveness with legality, accountability, and rights protection.