UN and Red Cross Urge Urgent Rules on Autonomous Weapons

UN News

A robot drone.

The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday warned that autonomous weapons capable of killing people without human intervention could soon be deployed in conflicts, calling for urgent negotiations to regulate their development and use.

The organisations stressed the need for international rules to ensure that decisions over the use of force remain subject to meaningful human control.

"We are now dangerously close to crossing a moral red line: the autonomous targeting of humans by machines," said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and President of the ICRC ⁠Mirjana Spoljaric in a joint statement.

"Negotiations must begin now to urgently adopt a legally binding instrument to regulate autonomous weapon systems with clear prohibitions and restrictions," they said.

"States must show political courage and move ⁠beyond incremental discussions towards decisive action", the joint statement said, calling for those talks to begin in November when a major conference is planned in Geneva.

States are due to meet in Geneva next week to discuss potential new rules, amid growing concerns over the use of AI-assisted semi-autonomous weapons in conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Iran and the Gulf.

The discussions, which have been under way since 2014, have made some progress, but advances in technology have added urgency to the issue.

Some militaries are already using fully autonomous weapons, including anti-missile systems deployed on warships. However, such systems are not currently known to have been used against human targets.

Human rights organisations have also raised concerns that AI-driven weapons systems may be difficult to predict or control, increasing the risk of fatal mistakes, such as failing to identify an injured or surrendering soldier.

They warn that when such errors occur, establishing accountability could become even more difficult in future investigations into alleged war crimes.



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