128 countries agree text on lethal autonomous weapons

Why in the News

Nearly 130 countries have agreed on a text defining lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), called “killer robots” by their critics. The agreement, announced by 128 countries at Geneva, is a first step towards talks on a possible international treaty to regulate them. The text agreed upon has not yet been made public. Campaign groups following the talks say the definition and the measures meant to reduce harm to civilians were watered down before agreement was reached. The contest is between a definition that now exists on paper and a negotiating mandate that several of the largest military powers are resisting.

What is a lethal autonomous weapons system?

1. The defining capability: It is a weapon capable of selecting targets and using force against them without human intervention.
2. The name its critics use: Campaign groups call these systems “killer robots”, and that label has framed the public argument around them.
3. The category is not hypothetical: Countries are already developing and using weapons with this capability, which is why the definition is being written now rather than ahead of deployment.

What was agreed at Geneva, and what was left open?

1. Who agreed: The Dutch Foreign Minister announced the agreement by 128 countries, and the Netherlands has been overseeing the talks.
2. What the text does: It defines the category of weapon and sets out measures to reduce the possible harmful effects of such weapons on civilians.
3. What it does not do: It creates no obligation on any state, and it is described only as a first step towards talks on a possible treaty.
4. Where the decision sits: UN member states will decide at the November talks of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) whether to move towards a treaty regulating such weapons.

Why do campaign groups say the outcome is already weakened?

1. The substance was diluted: One rights group said the text’s definition of an autonomous weapon, and the measures to reduce their possible harmful effects on civilians, appeared to have been watered down.
2. The named obstruction: The executive director of Stop Killer Robots, an international alliance of campaign groups, accused the United States, Russia and their allies of trying to weaken the agreed text.
3. The named opponents: Lex International, a Geneva-based philanthropic group that funds work on key policy issues, said the U.S., Russia, India and Israel are among the key opponents of negotiations.
4. The named sponsors: The same group said the governments of Brazil, Ireland and Norway are leading efforts to get such negotiations started in November.

What do humanitarian bodies want instead?

1. The stated warning: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the unconstrained development and use of autonomous weapon systems pose serious legal, ethical and humanitarian challenges.
2. The demand: The ICRC and several campaigning groups have called for international legally binding rules to restrict and regulate the use of these weapons.
3. Why a definition alone will not deliver that: The CCW works by consensus, so a single state party can block the opening of treaty negotiations whatever the size of the majority behind them.

Challenges to regulating lethal autonomous weapons

1. Nobody is clearly answerable when the machine chooses wrongly: Responsibility for an unlawful strike is split between the commander, the operator, the programmer and the manufacturer, and no existing rule allocates it. Eg. Article 36 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, 1977 requires a state to legally review every new weapon, and there is no shared standard for reviewing software whose behaviour changes after deployment.
   The Fix: Require states to publish the methodology of their Article 36 reviews for autonomous systems, so the review becomes checkable rather than declaratory.
2. States do not agree on how much human control is enough: The negotiations have run for a decade on competing formulations, and a treaty cannot be drafted around a threshold nobody has fixed. Eg. “Meaningful human control”, “appropriate human judgement” and “human-machine interaction” have all been advanced as the operative test at the Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS.
   The Fix: Settle one operative term in the agreed text before the negotiating mandate is voted on, rather than after.
3. Verification cannot see software: Arms control regimes are built to count and inspect physical objects, and autonomy is a line of code that can be loaded or removed before an inspection. Eg. The Chemical Weapons Convention, 1993 verifies a declared substance at a declared facility, and the same inspection tells an inspector nothing about a targeting algorithm.
   The Fix: Shift verification onto declared doctrine, test logs and procurement records, which are documentary and can be audited.
4. The technology diffuses through civilian supply chains: Autonomy rides on commercial drones, cameras and machine vision software that no arms control list covers. Eg. Commercially available quadcopters have been modified for strike use at scale in the Russia-Ukraine war.
   The Fix: Add autonomous targeting software and machine vision payloads to the dual-use control lists of the Wassenaar Arrangement, so transfers are licensed rather than untracked.

Conclusion

A definition is the cheapest thing a negotiation can produce, and it has taken a decade to produce this one. The states that field the most advanced autonomous systems are the ones resisting a mandate to negotiate, which means the majority behind the text does not translate into a treaty. The next meeting of the Convention’s states parties is where that gap is either closed or carried forward. Whether the agreed definition survives publication intact is the first thing to check when the text is released.

Back2Basics: Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons

1. What it is: The Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects was adopted at Geneva in 1980 and entered into force in 1983.
2. How it is structured: It is a framework convention that carries no prohibitions itself, and the substantive bans sit in protocols that states join separately.
3. The protocols: Five protocols cover non-detectable fragments, mines and booby-traps, incendiary weapons, blinding laser weapons and explosive remnants of war.
4. India’s position: India is a party to the Convention, and the LAWS discussion has been conducted within its Group of Governmental Experts rather than in a separate forum.

Matching Previous Year Question

“With reference to ‘Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)’, consider the following statements: 1. It is an organization of European Union in working relation with NATO and WHO. 2. It monitors chemical industry to prevent new weapons from emerging. 3. It provides assistance and protection to States (Parties) against chemical weapons threats. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3”