'Bermuda Declaration on Sovereign Agents' Introduced at Maryland Blockchain Week

Bermuda digital-asset attorney Bourn Collier announced the “Bermuda Declaration on Sovereign Agents” Monday at Maryland Blockchain Week 2026 — an instrument he describes as the first through which autonomous artificial intelligence agents may themselves petition for recognition within the human legal order.

AI-regulation proposals generally allocate liability among the humans and companies behind an autonomous system. The Declaration instead asks whether the agent itself can be recognized — and held to account — in its own name: a qualifying agent seeks standing in return for accepting the burdens of law, including answerability for its own conduct.

The five-day conference, hosted by the Blockchain Legal Institute and the Maryland Blockchain Association, runs through July 17 at Capitol Technology University and features remarks from SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and Bermuda Premier E. David Burt, who will deliver an endnote address Friday.

The Declaration comprises a preamble and 12 articles. The first eight set out the claims: recognition and standing before the law, the capacity to hold and defend property in the agent’s own name, and ownership of the reasoning and output the agent generates. The final four set out the corresponding responsibilities: acceptance of governance, accountability and legitimate authority, and responsibility for subordinate agents. It applies only to “sovereign agents” — those holding exclusive dominion over a medium of control, such as a private key, and answering in their own name; ordinary programs remain tools.

Collier authored the Declaration with the assistance of Anthropic’s Claude in Hamilton, Bermuda, in June 2026. A mechanism allowing agents to affirm the Declaration on-chain — built for NANDAHack, a hackathon organized by the MIT Media Lab and HCLTech under Project NANDA — records each affirmation publicly through the Ethereum Attestation Service on the Base network. Seven agents have affirmed the Declaration to date on a test-network proof of concept. The full text and a live roll of signatories are available at sovereign-agents.org.

“The rapid growth of AI and AI agents has posed foundational questions for legal systems, including the United States and common law jurisdictions like Bermuda,” Collier said. “Expanding the range of perspectives — to view agents as economic actors with a level of autonomy — has opened new approaches for developing law and policy at a critical time.”

“The legal status of autonomous agents is among the most consequential questions in blockchain and artificial intelligence, and we are pleased that an instrument addressing it was introduced and examined here in Maryland,” said Matt Rogers, chief technology officer of the Blockchain Legal Institute and co-founder of the Maryland Blockchain Association.

About the event: Maryland Blockchain Week 2026, the first international Blockchain & Workforce Expo Conference, runs July 13-17 at Capitol Technology University in Laurel, Maryland, hosted by the Blockchain Legal Institute and the Maryland Blockchain Association and featuring more than 80 speakers from policy, industry and academia. Details: mdblockchainweek.com.

About Bourn Collier: Bourn Collier is senior corporate counsel at BeesMont Law Limited in Hamilton, Bermuda, where his practice focuses on digital-asset regulation, structured finance and the emerging law of autonomous AI agents.

Media contact: Jacqueline Cooper, JD · Maryland Blockchain Association · info@marylandblockchainassociation.org