When the EU AI Act Travels: Legal Transplantability and Modular Adaptation in Third-Country AI Governance
Van Thanh Hoang
Banking Academy of Vietnam , Viet Namhttps://orcid.org/0009-0009-9817-1943
Ngoc Mai Nguyen
Banking Academy of Vietnam , Viet Namhttps://orcid.org/0009-0002-3220-0528
Abstract
This article examines the extent to which the EU AI Act can function as a model for AI governance beyond the European Union. It argues that regulatory influence should not be equated with successful legal transplantation. While the Act has quickly become a reference point for lawmakers and regulators outside Europe, its elements vary significantly in portability across legal systems. The article develops and applies a four-part framework for assessing legal transplantability, focusing on normative transplantability, institutional transplantability, market transplantability, and rights-operability. It uses selected third-country examples, including Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Brazil, not as an exhaustive survey, but as comparative tests of how different regulatory environments absorb, translate, or resist elements of the EU model. On that basis, the article distinguishes between elements of the Act that are comparatively more portable, such as risk-based classification, baseline transparency duties, documentation logic, and incremental governance tools, and those that resist transplantation more strongly, especially enforcement density, technical conformity infrastructures, and the rights-operability that makes fundamental-rights commitments actionable in practice. The article concludes that the EU AI Act travels most plausibly not as a complete statutory template, but as a modular regulatory architecture. Its comparative value for third countries lies less in wholesale replication than in selective adaptation sequenced to institutional capacity and regulatory readiness.
Keywords:
EU AI Act, legal transplantation, comparative law, AI governance, regulatory designReferences
Almada, Marco, and Anca Radu. “The Brussels Side-Effect: How the AI Act Can Reduce the Global Reach of EU Policy.” German Law Journal 25, no. 4 (2024): 646–63. https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2023.108.
Bibal, Adrien, Michael Lognoul, Alexandre de Streel, and Benoît Frénay. “Legal Requirements on Explainability in Machine Learning.” Artificial Intelligence and Law 29, no. 2 (2021): 149–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-020-09270-4.
Bolgouras, Vaios, Apostolis Zarras, Christian Leka, Ioannis Stylianou, Aristeidis Farao, and Christos Xenakis. “EU Regulatory Ecosystem for Ethical AI.” AI and Ethics 5 (2025): 5063–80. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-025-00749-x.
Bradford, Anu. The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Cancela-Outeda, Celso. “The EU’s AI Act: A Framework for Collaborative Governance.” Internet of Things 27 (2024): 101291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iot.2024.101291.
Cantero Gamito, Marta, and Christopher T. Marsden. “Artificial Intelligence Co-regulation? The Role of Standards in the EU AI Act.” International Journal of Law and Information Technology 32 (2024): eaae011. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaae011.
Crum, Ben. “Brussels Effect or Experimentalism? The EU AI Act and Global Standard-Setting.” Internet Policy Review 14, no. 3 (2025). https://doi.org/10.14763/2025.3.2032.
Dolowitz, David P., and David Marsh. “Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making.” Governance 13, no. 1 (2000): 5–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/ 0952-1895.00121.
European Commission. “AI Act.” Shaping Europe’s Digital Future. Accessed May 21, 2026. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai.
European Commission. “European AI Office.” Shaping Europe’s Digital Future. Accessed May 21, 2026. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-office.
European Commission. “Navigating the AI Act.” Shaping Europe’s Digital Future. Accessed May 21, 2026. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/navigating-ai-act.
European Commission. “Standardisation of the AI Act.” Shaping Europe’s Digital Future. Accessed May 21, 2026. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-act-standardisation.
Gikay, Asress A. “Risks, Innovation, and Adaptability in the UK’s Incrementalism versus the European Union’s Comprehensive Artificial Intelligence Regulation.” International Journal of Law and Information Technology (2024). https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaae013.
Gstrein, Oskar J., Noman Haleem, and Andrej Zwitter. “General-purpose AI Regulation and the European Union AI Act.” Internet Policy Review 13, no. 3 (2024). https://doi.org/10.14763/2024.3.1790.
Infocomm Media Development Authority. “Artificial Intelligence in Singapore.” Accessed May 21, 2026. https://www.imda.gov.sg/about-imda/emerging-technologies-and-research/ artificial-intelligence.
Kilian, Robert, Linda Jäck, and Dominik Ebel. “European AI Standards – Technical Standardisation and Implementation Challenges under the EU AI Act.” European Journal of Risk Regulation 16, no. 3 (2025): 1038–62. https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2025.10032.
Langer, Máximo. “From Legal Transplants to Legal Translations: The Globalization of Plea Bargaining and the Americanization Thesis in Criminal Procedure.” Harvard International Law Journal 45, no. 1 (2004): 1–64.
Legrand, Pierre. “The Impossibility of ‘Legal Transplants’.” Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 4, no. 2 (1997): 111–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X9700400202.
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. AI Guidelines for Business Ver. 1.2. Tokyo, 31 March 2026. https://www.meti.go.jp/shingikai/mono_info_service/ai_shakai_jisso/pdf/20260331_12.pdf.
Musthafa, Annas Rasid, and Gautama Budi Arundhati. “Artificial Intelligence Governance Beyond Borders: The EU AI Act’s Influence on Third Party Legal Frameworks and Regional Organizations.” Review of European and Comparative Law 63, no. 4 (2025): 7–28. https://doi.org/10.31743/recl.18927.
Neuwirth, Rostam J. “Prohibited Artificial Intelligence Practices in the Proposed EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA).” Computer Law & Security Review 48 (2023): 105798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2023.105798.
Palmiotto, Francesca. “The AI Act Roller Coaster: The Evolution of Fundamental Rights Protection in the Legislative Process and the Future of the Regulation.” European Journal of Risk Regulation 16, no. 2 (2025): 770–93. https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2024.97.
Pavlidis, Georgios. “The EU AI Act and the Rights-Based Approach to Technological Governance.” Review of European and Comparative Law 64, no. 1 (2026): 117–32. https://doi.org/10.31743/recl.19283.
Ren, Qiang, and Jing Du. “Harmonizing Innovation and Regulation: The EU Artificial Intelligence Act in the International Trade Context.” Computer Law & Security Review 54 (2024): 106028. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2024.106028.
Teubner, Gunther. “Legal Irritants: Good Faith in British Law or How Unifying Law Ends Up in New Divergences.” Modern Law Review 61, no. 1 (1998): 11–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.00125.
United Kingdom Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. A Pro-Innovation Approach to AI Regulation. London: HM Government, 2023. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-regulation-a-pro-innovation-approach/white-paper.
Watson, Alan. Legal Transplants: An Approach to Comparative Law. 2nd ed. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993.
Westerstrand, Salla. “Fairness in AI Systems Development: EU AI Act Compliance and Beyond.” Information and Software Technology 187 (2025): 107864. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2025. 107864.
Wróbel, Izabela M. “Artificial Intelligence Systems and the Right to Good Administration.” Review of European and Comparative Law 49, no. 2 (2022): 203–23. https://doi.org/10.31743/recl.13616.
Zetzsche, Dirk A., Ross P. Buckley, Janos N. Barberis, and Douglas W. Arner. “Regulating a Revolution: From Regulatory Sandboxes to Smart Regulation.” Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law 23, no. 1 (2017): 31–103.
Banking Academy of Vietnam https://orcid.org/0009-0009-9817-1943
