The NGO Human Right Watch (HRW) has called on governments around the world to agree to a new treaty at an international forum on the use of unmanned drones as weapons systems.
The organization has recalled that the so-called «killer robots» operate without meaningful human control, delegating life-and-death decisions to the machines.
In a 40-page report, Human Rights Watch and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School (United States), both organizations have compiled a series of measures for countries to develop a treaty based on previous humanitarian disarmament models, such as the one banning cluster munitions.
«A new international treaty addressing autonomous weapons systems needs a more appropriate forum for negotiations,» said HRW senior researcher Bonnie Docherty.
«There is ample precedent to demonstrate that an alternative process for creating legal norms on killer robots is feasible and desirable, and countries must act now to keep pace with technological advances,» she added.
More than 70 countries, as well as non-governmental organizations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have already deemed a new treaty with bans and restrictions on this type of weaponry necessary, urgent and feasible.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has previously called for «internationally agreed limits» on weapons systems that could themselves target and attack human beings, describing such weapons as «morally repugnant and politically unacceptable.»
Under the auspices of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) talks on lethal autonomous weapons systems have been underway since 2014.
As the NGO has recalled, UN member states will reconvene in Geneva from 16-18 November 2022 for an annual treaty meeting, although there is no indication that they will agree to negotiate a new legally binding instrument through the CCW in 2023 or in the near future.
The main reason for the lack of progress under the CCW is that its member countries rely on a consensus approach to decision-making, which means that a single country can reject a proposal even if all other countries agree.
As a result, some of the major military powers have repeatedly blocked proposals to move to negotiations, notably India and Russia.
«Given the shortcomings of the CCW forum, alternative processes for negotiating a new treaty should be explored,» HRW has said.
«The longer the issue of ‘killer robots’ remains stalled in the current forum, the more time developers of autonomous weapons systems will have to perfect new technologies and achieve commercial viability,» Docherty has warned, reaffirming that «a new treaty would help stop the arms race.»
