The Global Governance of Autonomous Weapon Systems

Project Description

GGI’s Peace and Security and AI and Global Governance sections have launched a new research and policy advice project on “The Global Governance of Autonomous Weapon Systems: Policy Gaps, Regulation Challenges and Governance Opportunities”. The project, carried out in partnership with the Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) in Stockholm examines the complex challenges as well as various actors’ recent, current and future approaches related to governing and regulating Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS), including lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS).

The project will focus on the multiple implications of the development and use of AWS and will provide a comprehensive overview of various existing and potential future approaches to their global governance. This includes a mapping and review of the numerous ongoing initiatives and frameworks to address the challenges AWS pose, including efforts by the United Nations (UN GGE, General Assembly, Office of the Secretary General), regional groups, alliances of states and initiatives advanced by NGO alliances. Based on this analysis, the project will identify key policy and legal gaps, the tensions between the fast-paced development of AWS and AI in the military realm on the one hand and the search for the effective governance of AWS and the mitigation of risks they pose. This also includes a discussion of the potential consequences of AWS on warfare, highlighting concerns regarding accountability, human control, and the violation of international laws such as International Humanitarian Law (IHL), International Criminal Law (ICL), and International Human Rights Law (IHRL).

Finally, the project will advance concrete policy recommendations, based on the input gathered from background interviews with more than 40 core experts (including representatives from the diplomatic and military communities, international and regional organisations, NGOs, civil society and academia as well as the private sector) and on outcomes of the discussions of a high-level expert workshop in Brussels in April. It is hoped that the outcomes of this project will lead to the creation of a strong network and evidence-based proposals for approaching the issue of the global governance of AWS more concretely and more effectively.

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