Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium - Silja Vöneky

Autonomous Weapons and International Law

As in the not so far future it might be possible to use autonomous weapons in armed conflicts, the international community has to answer pressing questions today: should we regulate autonomous weapons at the international plane? And, if the answer is in the affirmative: how should we regulate these weapons?  

In searching for solutions, one should start with an overview of the laws of war. It will be seen that States have agreed on many rules laid down in international treaties in order to limit the use of weapons since the beginning of the last century. Nevertheless, the current discussions about Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) under the umbrella of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) make it obvious that there are conflicting views on the topic and not all States want to limit the development of lethal autonomous weapons. Many State actors and NGOs, however, argue that there is the need for an international prohibition and for “meaningful human control”.