UN disarmament body calls for global action on autonomous weapons

A United Nations (UN) body has approved a draft resolution on the negative impacts of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered weapons systems, saying there is an “urgent need” for international action to address the challenges and concerns they present.

Otherwise known as lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), such systems are able to select, detect and engage targets with little or no human intervention.

At the start of November 2023, the UN’s First Committee – which deals with issues around disarmament and international security – overwhelmingly voted in favour of the resolution, with 164 votes for; five against; and eight abstentions.

Spearheaded by Austria, the resolution noted that its sponsors are “mindful of the serious challenges and concerns that new technological applications [represent] in the military domain”, and that they are “concerned about the possible negative consequences … [of LAWS] on global security and regional and international stability, including the risk of an emerging arms race, lowering the threshold for conflict and proliferation”.

The draft resolution now passed specifically requests that UN secretary-general António Guterres seeks the views of member states on LAWS, as well as their views on “ways to address the related challenges and concerns they raise from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives and on the role of humans in the use of force”.

These views should be reflected in a “substantive report” that reflects the full range of perspectives given, so that member states can use it as a discussion point in the next session of the General Assembly – the UN’s main deliberative and policy making body.

As part of this opinion-gathering exercise, the secretary-general is also being asked by the First Committee to invite the views of various international and regional organisations, civil society groups, members of the scientific community and representatives from industry, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) specifically.

The resolution also states the First Committee will include a session on LAWS in its agenda for the next session, starting in 2024. As a draft resolution, it will now go to the General Assembly for its consideration and action.

While UN resolutions are formal expressions of the opinions or will of the UN bodies that created them, and outline what actions are going to be taken if adopted, only resolutions from the UN Security Council are binding, with most being used as consensus-building instruments.

On 5 October 2023, Guterres and ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric issued a joint call urging world leaders to launch negotiations on a new legally binding instrument to set clear prohibitions and restrictions for LAWS, and to conclude these negotiations by 2026.

“In the current security landscape, setting clear international red lines will benefit all States,” they said.

In a blog post on the resolution, the UK Campaign to Stop Killer Robots – part of an international coalition of NGOs organising to place limits on LAWS – said that while it does not call for negotiations, it is a “significant step forward” in creating a legal framework that ensures meaningful human control of force.

Chris Cole, executive director of Drone Wars, a member organisation of the Campaign, said: “The passing of this resolution is an important step forward in the campaign to ban Killer Robots as it mandates the Secretary General to seek the views of states and others on the way forward. It’s really important now that we ensure that the public’s concerns about the humanitarian, ethical and security impacts are heard and relayed by the British government, and not just the voices of those with a vested interest in developing the technology.”