By Olivia Le Poidevin<\/p>\n
GENEVA, March 3 (Reuters) – Progress on a potential international framework to prohibit and restrict Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) is urgently needed, as talks on the \u200cmatter in Geneva enter a crucial phase, their chair said.<\/p>\n
From this week to the mandate’s \u200cend in September, 128 states will discuss whether to agree by consensus a non-binding text that could pave the way for \u200bfuture negotiations on prohibitions and regulations on LAWS.<\/p>\n
Since 2014, more than a hundred states party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons have met in the Swiss city to discuss banning LAWS that do not comply with existing international law while regulating others.<\/p>\n
“If we wait then it almost gets to a stage \u200cwhere you’re too late… We will \u2060be overtaken by technological developments,” Robert in den Bosch, the Dutch Disarmament Ambassador in Geneva and Chair of the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on LAWS, \u2060told Reuters.<\/p>\n
There are mounting concerns over the role of AI-assisted semi-autonomous weapons that have been used in conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, and in .<\/p>\n
While states agree international humanitarian law (IHL) applies to LAWS, specific internationally binding \u200bstandards for \u200bthese systems remain virtually non-existent.<\/p>\n
Russia and the United States, \u200bamong others, oppose new legally binding \u200cinstruments, arguing existing laws suffice.<\/p>\n
In den Bosch stated that others say new rules are needed to bridge supposed accountability gaps in IHL, which place obligations on states and individuals, not on machines.<\/p>\n
The Rolling Text under discussion in Geneva proposes “context appropriate human judgment and control” as a measure to ensure that systems that “identify, select and engage” targets without human intervention comply with IHL.<\/p>\n
Despite growing calls for urgent regulation, \u200cU.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ deadline for agreeing a legally \u200bbinding instrument on LAWS this year will realistically be missed, \u200bIn den Bosch said.<\/p>\n
While the deadline is \u200boutside the Geneva talks’ remit, the challenge of securing consensus on even non-binding \u200celements underscores the difficulty of making progress, \u200bIn den Bosch stated.<\/p>\n
The talks \u200bare set within a challenging context of geopolitical tensions and recent European withdrawals from the landmine ban treaty over Russian threats.<\/p>\n
The Review Conference of the CCW in November could decide \u200bto launch negotiations for a \u200cbinding protocol after the Geneva talks end. However, in the absence of agreement, there is \u200ba risk some countries might pursue a breakaway treaty elsewhere, In den Bosch stated.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Olivia Le Poidevin; Editing by Saad Sayeed)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Olivia Le Poidevin GENEVA, March 3 (Reuters) – Progress on a potential international framework to prohibit and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[16030,65,9680],"class_list":["post-26308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-geneva","tag-den-bosch","tag-geneva","tag-international-humanitarian-law"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116179631125956773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}