On April 15th, 1915, French and Canadian troops huddled in the muddy trenches near Ypres, Belgium, on the Western Front. A few hundred yards away across No Man’s Land, German troops had positioned thousands of large metal canisters filled with liquid chlorine along a four-mile stretch of road near the trenches. As the winds shifted toward the Allied lines, the canisters released a lethal green-yellow cloud that began drifting toward the enemy. As the cloud descended on the troops, they were hit with an excruciating burning sensation in their eyes and throats, followed by violent coughing and choking, ultimately succumbing to the poison’s effects, their bodies collapsing in the muck of the trenches.
This was the first documented use of poisonous gas being deployed on a battlefield. The attack sparked a chemical arms race with both sides rapidly expanding their arsenals, developing and testing hundreds of different chemical agents. By the war’s end, approximately 50 distinct types of poison gases had been deployed. The horrifying, indiscriminate nature of these weapons, which inflicted agonizing suffering on soldiers and civilians alike, led to widespread condemnation. In response, poisonous gas became the first to be banned under international law with the 1925 Geneva Protocol, marking a significant step toward the regulation of warfare.
Today, the international community is grappling with the emergence of a new class of weapons. Autonomous weapons systems present significant challenges to existing international law, particularly concerning accountability, the protection of civilians, and compliance with the principles of distinction and proportionality in armed conflict. As they evolve, questions surface on whether current legal frameworks such as the Geneva Conventions and various arms control treaties can adequately address the potential risks and ethical concerns they present. Below are some key moments of the global push to regulate autonomous weapons.
Key Milestones: From Early Discussions to Today
- April 2013: Christof Heyns, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, submits a UN report on the central question of “whether it is not inherently wrong to let autonomous machines decide who and when to kill.” The report recommends imposing temporary bans or suspensions (moratoriums) on developing, deploying, or using autonomous weapons and establishing a high-level panel to explore the issue more in-depth.
- November 2013: During the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), parties agreed to initiate discussions on autonomous weapons, following a mandate proposed by Ambassador Jean-Hugues Simon Michel of France in 2013.
- May 2014: The CCW Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) is established to specifically discuss the potential implications of autonomous weapons, their risks, and possible regulatory frameworks. The GGE included experts from various countries, as well as representatives from humanitarian organizations and international law experts.
- April 2015: The 2015 CCW Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems takes place in Geneva, Switzerland. This was a pivotal event in the international discourse on autonomous weapons, marking the first formal opportunity for governments and experts to engage in in-depth discussions about the potential humanitarian and legal implications of these systems.
- November 2019: The CCW establishes 11 guiding principles as a framework to understand and address the risks and challenges posed by autonomous weapons systems.
- November 2021: UNESCO’s 193 member states voted in favor of adopting a comprehensive Ethical Framework for AI, aimed at ensuring that AI technologies are developed and used in accordance with human rights, ethics, and international law. The framework recommends that “in scenarios where decisions may involve life-and-death consequences, final human determination should apply.
- December 2021: The Sixth Review Conference of the CCW concludes without achieving a consensus on establishing binding controls. Several states initiate regional meetings outside the CCW framework to discuss the issue further.
- August 2022: Within the framework of the CCW, a group of 11 states draft “Protocol VI,” an additional legal instrument that complements and elaborates on the main convention, which proposes a ban on autonomous weapons that cannot be used with meaningful human control.
- October 2022: The UN Human Rights Council adopts resolution 51/22, recognizing “the use of new and emerging technologies in the military domain, especially certain forms of automated decision-making, may, in certain circumstances, cause, contribute to, or facilitate the commission of human rights violations and abuses.”
- February 2023: Costa Rica hosts the Latin American and Caribbean conference on the social and humanitarian impact of autonomous weapons. Attending states issue a joint statement known as the Belén Communiqué, urging the international community to negotiate regulations on autonomous weapons systems swiftly and calling for urgent international rules on these technologies.
- March 2023: At the 28th Ibero-American Summit, the countries involved issued a special statement expressing their concern about the social and humanitarian effects of autonomous weapons. They called for more international cooperation to create strict, legally binding rules for their use.
- April 2023: Luxembourg hosts the Luxembourg Autonomous Weapons Systems Conference, gathering speakers from governments, the tech industry, civil society, research institutes, and academia. International experts stress the urgent need for meaningful human control over autonomous weapons systems.
- May 2023: A group of 14 states presents a revised version of Protocol VI. The protocol proposes a ban on autonomous weapons that lack “meaningful human control,” effectively prohibiting the use of systems that cannot be operated with significant human intervention in critical decision-making processes.
- September 2023: The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a regional organization comprising 15 Caribbean countries, issues the CARICOM Declaration on Autonomous Weapons Systems. The declaration calls for the “urgent pursuit of an international legally binding instrument” to include prohibitions and regulations on autonomous weapons systems, emphasizing the need for international cooperation to address the risks and ethical concerns posed by these technologies.
- October 2023: In a joint statement, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and Mirjana Spoljaric, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), call for the establishment of a legally binding treaty on autonomous weapons systems by 2026.
- December 2023: The UN General Assembly adopts the first resolution on autonomous weapons systems. The resolution emphasizes that algorithms should not have full control over decisions involving the use of lethal force, as human responsibility and accountability must be preserved. It was approved by a majority of 164 votes in favor, with five against and eight abstentions.
- December 2023: The Manila Meeting on Indo-Pacific Perspectives on Autonomous Weapons Systems brings together representatives from 26 Indo-Pacific nations and six observer states. The Philippines emphasized the urgent need to advance negotiations toward a strong and future-proof legally binding instrument to address the growing threats posed by autonomous weapons systems.
- April 2024: The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member states gather for the Regional Conference on the Peace and Security Aspects of Autonomous Weapons Systems in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Attending states issued the Freetown Communiqué, a joint statement recognizing the need to strengthen existing laws with a new legally binding instrument.
- April 2024: Austria hosts the first global conference on autonomous weapons outside of the UN system. The conference, Humanity at the Crossroads: Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Challenge of Regulation, brought together some 1,000 participants, including political leaders, experts, and members of civil society from 144 countries. A final statement was issued following the conference affirming a “strong commitment to work with urgency and with all interested stakeholders for an international legal instrument to regulate autonomous weapons systems.”
- November 2024: The UN General Assembly adopts its second resolution on autonomous weapons systems, emphasizing the “serious challenges and concerns that new and emerging technological applications in the military domain, including those related to artificial intelligence and autonomy in weapons systems, [raise] from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives.” The resolution passed with 161 states in favor and three against, with 13 abstentions.
Overall, there is a growing momentum toward achieving new international laws on autonomous weapons. This is a reflection of the widespread recognition of the ethical, legal and humanitarian dangers posed by autonomous weapons and clarity over the solution we need.
An overview can be found in our article The Political Landscape: Global Perspectives on Regulating Autonomous Weapons.