Abstract
Since 2018, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres has maintained that lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) are politically unacceptable and morally repugnant and has called for their prohibition under international law. Other commentators have joined the Secretary-General’s call for a global prohibition on LAWS. There are, however, several challenges facing a blanket ban on LAWS. First, at present, no commonly agreed definition of LAWS exists, hence it is difficult to ban all categories of an entity when it is not precisely legally defined as the subject of such legislation. Second, there is no universal consensus on the need for legal prohibition, or the extent of required legal controls on different aspects of LAWS. Third, in the face of the inevitable development of such systems, regardless of the existence of a ban, it is important to situate future prohibition and regulation within the existing international humanitarian law (IHL) framework, and within less legally binding, but still influential conventions and norms of global society. This paper, therefore, first assesses the definitional challenges facing the regulation and prohibition of LAWS. It then assesses the positions and perspectives of different international actors to assess the extent to which we can uncover a global societal overlapping consensus on the need for at least some limited form of regulation, and on which aspects of LAWS can agreement be reached. Finally, the paper situates recommendations within the existing frameworks of IHL and international norms.
Presenters
Brendan HoweDean and Professor of International Relations, Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University, Seoul Teugbyeolsi [Seoul-T'ukpyolshi], South Korea
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems, International Humanitarian Law, Norms, Global Governance
