Toward a Ban on Lethal Autonomous Weapons

The Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System is an unmanned ground vehicle for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition missions. From April 11–15, 2016, at the United Nations Office at Geneva, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) conducted a third year of informal meetings to hear expert testimony regarding a preemptive ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). A total of 94 states attended the meeting, and at the end of the week they agreed by consensus to recommend the formation of an open-ended Group of Government Experts (GGE). A GGE is the next step in forging a concrete proposal upon which the member states could vote. By the end of 2016 a preemptive ban has been called for by 19 states. Furthermore, meaningful human control, a phrase first proposed by advocates for a ban, has been adopted by nearly all the states, although the phrase's meaning is contested. Thus a ban on LAWS would appear to have gained momentum. Even the large military powers, notably the U.S., have publicly stated that they will support a ban if that is the will of the member states.